


What We Wished For

by CheshireJabberwock



Category: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure tri., Disney - All Media Types, Gravity Falls, Kingdom Hearts, Moana (2016)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain Team Up, Fandom and Character Tags To Be Added As Needed, Gen, No Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-10-18 17:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10622016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireJabberwock/pseuds/CheshireJabberwock
Summary: Roxas escapes the digital Twilight Town before he can be returned to Sora. Forming a tentative alliance with a strange man named Vanitas, Roxas sets out to find answers, exact vengeance, and maybe make a place where he can belong. AU/AC, canon divergent from the KH2 prologue.





	1. Encroaching Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate canon from the KH2 prologue. Some tweaking of KH lore as necessary. Ignores anything from 2.8 and beyond; I started working on this before it came out, and I haven’t seen anything from it since I prefer to play the games myself and it’ll be quite a while until I’m able to do so.
> 
> Expect additional tags in future chapters, particularly for other KH characters who will show up eventually.
> 
> Chapter 1 warnings: Assumes you've seen Moana. Expect spoilers and glossing over of movie dialogue so I can keep the recapping to a minimum.

Fragmentary images of a boy he almost knew. A heavy haze behind his eyes, forcing his mind to a sluggish crawl. Fractured memories that kept slipping out of his grasp. A throbbing pain in his hand, each pulse accompanied by a chicken clucking.

“Hei Hei!” a girl’s voice hissed, chagrined. A soft rustle of movement, and the source of the pain ceased. “Let him sleep.”

Roxas opened his eyes.

Round dark eyes in a round dark face, brow creased with concern, waves of thick black hair forming a curtain that cut Roxas off from the rest of the room as a girl around his age leaned over him.

Seeing that he was awake, she scrambled to her feet and vanished from his line of sight. “Gramma! Dad! He’s awake!”

Groaning, Roxas sat up, and tried to get his bearings.

He was in some kind of wooden hut, a fiber-woven pallet beneath him. Heat clung to his skin, sticky with perspiration. And that was without the heavy fabric he was used to; he wore only a knee-length wrap around his hips. A scrawny, googly-eyed chicken stood by his hand, pecking at the empty floor.

“Where am I?” He brought a hand to his head, sick tension between his temples as he tried to recall how he’d come here, where he’d come _from_. A glimpse of a sunset-soaked town flickered behind his eyes.

Twilight Town. He’d been in Twilight Town. He couldn’t remember why, or who he’d been with, but nothing was more familiar to him than Twilight Town. No matter what else happened, he would always remember that place.

Roxas pulled his hand from his head, frowning at that last thought. ‘What else happened’? Straining his jumbled mind to its limits, he tried to reach out for it.

three teens his age, two boys and a girl, familiar but strange ( _Hayner, Pence, Olette_ )

a lanky man in a black coat with wild red hair, a complicated morass of associations ( _Axel_ )

a deep-voiced man clad all in red, face wrapped in bandages ( _I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU_ )

static in his ears, behind his eyes, coating his mind _(So – )_

_C n  ou h   r m , ki  ?_

“Are you alright, young man?”

Roxas flinched, jolted from his thoughts. He looked up, eyeing his visitors warily.

The girl was back, worry writ clear on her face. A tall, broad-shouldered man and an old woman stood behind her. It was the man who had spoken.

“I don’t know,” Roxas admitted. Confusion sat most heavily on him, but also unease, restlessness, banked anger at something he couldn’t remember. All heaped with frustration that his memories were such a mess. “I can’t really remember much of anything.”

Bits and pieces, but nothing substantial enough to fit together into a coherent picture.

The man frowned, and the old woman stared at him intently. Both questioning what they heard.

The girl said, “Gramma found you in the shallows, unconscious.” Some of his tension bled away. She started talking so readily, she must have believed him. “Your clothes are drying now, and Mom figured you’d be more comfortable wearing something better anyway. I’m Moana, and this is my Dad – Chief Tui – and my Gramma, Ta-”

“Just call me Gramma,” the old woman said with a warm smile. She’d needed to take his measure, but she believed him, too.

“I’m Roxas,” he offered. Two out of three was enough to trust them with that much. “Where am I?”

“Motunui,” Moana said, as if that should mean something to him. When Roxas’s face stayed blank, her brow furrowed. “The island?” she prompted.

“I think Roxas is from very far away, and doesn’t know the names of the islands around here,” Gramma said, sneaking a wink at him.

“I think you’re right,” Roxas agreed.

Motunui. This was… another world. He’d been to other worlds before, hadn’t he? But not this one.

That was good. New and different was important, for reasons he couldn’t remember.

“How did you come here, then?” Tui asked, arching an eyebrow.

Roxas shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

Tui sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Roxas eyed him warily. Moana was nice, and Gramma had apparently decided to help him, but right now his fate was in the hands of their chief.

At last, Tui lifted his head, meeting Roxas’s gaze squarely. “You are welcome to stay here until you recover your memory, Roxas, so long as you cause no trouble. Moana, I put him in your charge.”

As Tui turned to leave, Moana grinned at Roxas. She offered him a hand up.

“Want a tour of the island?”

Roxas followed Moana out of the hut. As he stepped into island-bright sunshine, beheld a rolling wave of coconut trees, laughing children, and a horizon full of ocean, his stomach dropped to his knees.

_“What happened to my home? My island? Riku? Kai-”_

Roxas shook his head, viciously chasing away the intrusive, foggy image. _Leave me alone,_ he snarled internally with a vehemence he couldn’t remember the cause of. _That’s not_ my _memory._

Roxas jogged after Moana.

 

***

 

Life on Motunui was different without being wholly unfamiliar; Roxas was surprised at how quickly and easily he fit in. Before a week had passed, he’d settled into a new routine.

In the morning, Roxas and Moana would take turns at chores. One of them would clean the bedding and feed the animals while the other helped Sina, Moana’s mother, make breakfast. After eating, Roxas would work with the coconut pickers while Moana gave dance lessons. Climbing coconut trees came naturally to him, and he fought hard not to wonder why.

Lunch time found Roxas with whoever had food ready, and he’d spend an hour or two afterwards helping them in thanks for sharing. Then he joined Moana for her afternoon circuit as the chief’s daughter, addressing any concerns the villagers might have. While they walked, Moana would tell him about this or that aspect of village culture, history, life; frequently, her eyes wandered towards the water as they talked.

The days were long, and full of light.

“Remember anything yet?” Moana asked him as they walked to the coconut grove, a routine established over the past seven days.

“Not really.” Nothing worth sharing. Roxas’s dreams were filled with Twilight Town, and peaceful days spent with those three kids. In the dreams, Hayner, Pence, and Olette were his best friends, but when he woke up, the sentiment melted away like snow on Motunui’s peaks. Nonexistent, impossible as anything but a hallucination.

But Roxas had spent time with them, and recently. He couldn’t remember why, or how. His memories from before Twilight Town were scant and shaky, and all he could put his finger on was a dark, rainy city he was sure he’d called home. Axel was there. And the others.

What Roxas couldn’t recall was who “the others” were. No one he missed, but he needed to remember them. Of that much, he was certain.

“It’s the harvest,” Feleti, the woman who spoke for the coconut farmers, was telling Moana. Roxas broke free of his wandering thoughts as she opened a coconet to reveal the parched, black-veined meat.

 _Touched by Darkness,_ part of him recognized instantly. Memories of the Heartless hit him like a tidal wave, sucking the peace and warmth right out of the air.

The Heartless, and…

Nobodies. Organization XIII.

 _That’s right. I’m a Nobody,_ Roxas thought, numb. _I don’t… belong here._

“…clear the diseased trees,” Moana’s voice pierced through the cold. “We will plant a new grove… um, there.” She turned to Roxas, her brow furrowing further when she saw his face. “Roxas? Are you alright?”

Roxas looked down. “I…”

“Chief!” One of the fishermen called urgently, running towards them and waving. Tui hurried down to him. Moana started to as well, then paused when she realized Roxas wasn’t following, and looked back.

Roxas forced himself to smile, weak though it was. “I’ll catch up later. I want to take a look at those trees.”

Moana hesitated, searching his eyes. Then she nodded and ran to the beach.

Roxas all but ran to the coconut grove. He placed a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree, closing his eyes – shutting out the Light, so he could hear the Darkness. Demyx had taught him how to do that, a trick to make it easier to summon a portal home.

The rustling of dead leaves. Earthy groans and rumbles, far far away. Hissing, howling.

When Roxas opened his eyes, his feet had brought him to a bare, shadowed shore, rocks sloping directly into the water. This part of Motunui hadn’t been included in Moana’s tour, beyond a vague hand gesture to encompass the far side of the island.

On the rocky cliffside, tendrils of Darkness snaked out of the water, rooting into stone like leeches. Roxas jumped down into the water, crouched, and brushed his fingers over one ashy shadow.

_Kid! Are you listening?_

Roxas’s world went black.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing on a stained glass platform. The colors beneath were mostly in blues, and the image they depicted…

Sora.

Roxas flinched, took a step back, and almost stumbled as his foot caught on uneven glass. Turning, he saw a giant crack in the floor, gone dim and dull.

And someone else’s feet.

Roxas looked up sharply, into a face he should know, but with black hair instead of brown, gold eyes instead of blue. A little too tall, a little too old. Wearing something like what Riku had when possessed by Ansem.

“Who are you?” he snapped, arms outflung before he knew it, two Keyblades flashing into his hands. He jolted, and in his shock he lost his hold on them, vanishing in bursts of magic. Roxas stared at his now-empty hands. Since when did he have two?

The Not-Sora sighed. “Great,” he said. His eyes rolled skyward. “You’ve forgotten everything.” Crossing his arms, he half-heartedly kicked the crack in the floor. “Probably because of this.”

“Are you going to answer the question or not?” Roxas demanded, in no mood for mystique or riddles.

Not-Sora’s mouth quirked. “Vanitas,” he said. “I’m not going to waste my breath explaining everything again. Remember for yourself.”

“Easy for you to say,” Roxas grumbled. Even with the memories he’d recovered, he had no idea what had happened to him. Something in Twilight Town. The… fake Twilight Town, where the man in red was… and Axel had…

Pain lanced through his head. Roxas’s fingers scrabbled at his forehead. The crack in the floor groaned in protest, a spiderweb of new lines fanning out from the tip.

Hands grabbed his shoulders before he could collapse, keeping him upright.

“Easy there,” Vanitas scolded. “Don’t force it, kid.”

“You’re the one who told me to remember,” Roxas managed to rasp. He dropped his hands to scowl at Vanitas. “My _name_ is Roxas.”

Vanitas barked a laugh, callous and rueful. “I know. _Roxas_.”

Roxas wrenched away from him.

“If it’s not _too much_ to explain,” Roxas said acerbically, “what are you doing here?” The first and most important in a string of questions dozens deep, if Vanitas were willing to answer.

Vanitas only hummed, strolling away to examine the image of Sora. Roxas’s mouth thinned in irritation, but there was no point wasting his time or energy on a fruitless pursuit. He didn’t know how to expel Vanitas from this place, either. Or even how to wake up back in the real world.

With little else to preoccupy him, Roxas knelt next to the fracture to examine it more closely. The worst damage was right in the middle of the line, jagged glass curling out from a circular hole, one handspan across. Like something had been inserted, then violently removed. The rest of the damage was more superficial, as if caused by some kind of impact to the weakened floor.

Tentatively, Roxas traced a finger around the rim of the hole. A dizzy wave of head-pounding pain was his reward – and with it, came understanding, shaky memories slotting into place.

The day he woke up in Twilight Town. A year with the Organization, the memories spotty and dull from damage, but the knowledge of it clear and coherent. Fighting Riku. The fake Twilight Town with its fake friends and fake memories. Namine.

The last thing Roxas could remember before waking up on Motunui was Axel and the man in red showing up at the frozen Struggle match. There was a hole in his memories to match the hole in the floor.

“Remember anything?” Vanitas asked, breath tickling the back of Roxas’s neck.

Roxas yelped, leapt to his feet, and whirled, Oathkeeper in his hand in an instant.

Vanitas only laughed.

Roxas lowered the Keyblade, glowering at the taller man.

“Yeah,” Roxas replied, grudging to share personal information but lacking much of a choice. “But nothing about you. There’s still a… hole.”

“Hmm.” Vanitas eyed the damaged glass. “So we’ll have to deal with that first, then.”

“’We’?”

“Yep,” Vanitas said, sauntering closer. “You and I have a deal. You help me get something I want, I help you get something you want. But you’re no good to me if you’re broken. If you can get us to the source of that Darkness you found, I can help you use it to fix the damage.”

“Source of the Darkness?” Roxas’s brow furrowed. “It’s not from the Heartless?”

Vanitas snorted. “The Heartless don’t _make_ Darkness, Roxas. They’re a _byproduct_ of it. Darkness comes from Hearts, and a Heart making enough Darkness to taint this idyllic little island pastiche from across an ocean has to be the Heart of the World. And you have a Dark Keyblade. Do the math.”

Roxas looked at Oathkeeper, still clasped in his left hand. Then he arched an eyebrow at Vanitas.

Vanitas gestured to his right hand. “The other one, dimwit.”

Unbidden, Oblivion appeared in Roxas’s right hand, and he frowned at it before turning back to Vanitas, whose eyes had gone hungry and feral. Vanitas gave him a razor-edged grin.

“I’ll teach you something _neat_ once you get your memory back,” he said cheerfully. “But first… it’s time to wake up, kid.”

 

***

 

Roxas’s eyes snapped open, body heaving upright. He panted for a minute, trying to get his bearings.

Moana’s home, near enough to dawn that a few of the village roosters were greeting the day. Sina and Tui were asleep on their pallets, and Pua was tucked into Roxas’s side, but Moana’s and Gramma’s beds were empty.

Someone must have found him unconscious and brought him back yesterday. Or, at least, Roxas hoped it was yesterday. He’d have to ask Sina or Tui when they woke, or Moana and Gramma when they got back.

His stomach growled, reminding him his last meal was too long ago. Roxas eased away from Pua, and tiptoed outside. By the time he’d made a fire and started breakfast, the villagers were out and about, starting their days, if in a more somber and reserved fashion than Roxas was used to seeing.

Moana and Gramma still weren’t back. After breakfast, maybe he should scout the island. If there was Darkness here, there might also be Heartless.

Sina soon emerged, and kneeled beside Roxas. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Better,” Roxas assured her. “I think it was just… uh, sunstroke.” Sina arched an eyebrow, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t need to lie to me, Roxas. Tui found you in the water, near that strange… infection. If that disease is scaring away the fish and damaging our crops, I’m sure it can make a young man ill, too. Be more careful, alright?”

“I will,” Roxas said. It struck him that he’d never had people sincerely worry about him before, so he mustered a smile of thanks for Sina. Her return smile was full of sorrow and worry, and Roxas’s faded. “What’s wrong?”

Sina stared into the fire. “Gramma Tala passed away,” she said at last, head bowed.

“Oh.” Roxas had no experience with grief. His chest felt strange and tight, and he couldn’t think of anything that sounded right to say. “I’m sorry.” What else…? If he asked Moana about it in private, maybe she could help him. “Where’s Moana?”

Sina lifted her head, eyes seeking out the horizon. “She left,” she said. “To return the Heart of Te Fiti.”

 _A Heart?_ “What’s that?” Roxas asked warily.

“One of our old myths,” Sina sighed. “Gramma Tala told the story often, and said it was true. Seeing that strange infection… that _darkness_ … I think she was right. I am not as skilled a storyteller as she was, but the story goes…”

Roxas listened intently. Te Fiti, the mother island, creator of life; Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, who stole the Heart; Te Ka, demon of earth and fire, who struck Maui down. The Heart lost for a thousand years, until the ocean delivered it to Motunui’s shores. Moana’s conviction, and Gramma’s, that Moana was meant to find Maui, and deliver him to Te Fiti, so that the Heart could be restored, and save all the world from plunging into Darkness.

 _Good news for us, kid,_ Vanitas’s voice murmured in his mind. _If the Heart of the World has lost her Heart, the power left behind should be easier for_ you _to work with._

Roxas ignored the jibe.

After eating breakfast with Sina and Tui, Roxas collected the clothes he’d arrived in, and slipped away to the far side of the island. Closing his eyes and concentrating on the sound of Te Fiti’s Darkness, Roxas summoned a portal.

He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the village. Moana, Gramma, Sina, Tui… everyone here had been kind to him. With most of his memories returned, Roxas knew how much that mattered.

“Thank you,” he said. “Goodbye.”

He stepped into the Darkness.

 

***

 

Roxas picked his way carefully along the dark road. There were no Heartless in sight for now, but that could change at any time. His head whipped around every time he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but so far there had always been nothing there.

Halfway to his destination, Roxas paused. Nothing there? Or… Nobody?

“Come out,” he barked harshly. If Axel was following him again, or one of the others had found him…

Then, a shaky whisper on the surface of his mind. _My liege._

A Dusk appeared. Then another, and another, and behind them one of Roxas’s Samurai Nobodies. Within moments, he was surrounded – only about a dozen Dusks, and four Samurai, but one was too many. They could take word of his location back to the Organizaton.

Oathkeeper and Oblivion manifested in Roxas’s hands, and he settled into a guard stance, ready to pursue should the Nobodies try to escape.

The Dusks all shied back, but made no move to leave. The Samurai didn’t even flinch. None of them showed any sign of attacking.

 _Master,_ one of the Samurai murmured. _We are yours_.

Roxas hesitated, then slowly lowered his weapons. Lower Nobodies couldn’t lie to those with human form. “Did someone else order you to tell me that?” he asked, suspicious.

_No, my liege._

_The other masters do not know we are here, Master Thirteen._

“And the other Dusks?” Roxas pressed through the chorus of replies.

 _None will betray you, my liege,_ the frontmost Samurai said. _My fellows monitor them._

Roxas vaguely recognized her mental voice – he’d often given his direct orders to her and left her to relay them. Even though he’d rarely asked them for more than their assistance in opening a portal back to the castle back when he’d struggled with it himself, they’d still somehow become attached to him, and developed their own unique form.

Roxas tried to remember who’d picked the name “Samurai” for them, when Roxas had been too new for creativity. Luxord, maybe? Luxord or Zexion.

Roxas considered the small band of Nobodies. “Why?” he finally asked. None had chosen to side with him when he’d gone back to the city to challenge Xemnas, and met Riku instead. Why would they change their allegiance now?

 _You summoned us, my liege,_ the Samurai leader answered simply.

 _You did,_ Vanitas agreed.

 _You couldn’t tell me that sooner?_ Roxas wondered sourly, but didn’t expect an answer. Nor did he receive one, save laughter.

Well, whatever the reason they were here, accepting their presence relied on the answer to one more question. “Will you obey only my orders?” he asked. “Are you strong enough to?”

_So long as we draw strength from you, Master Thirteen._

Strength from him? Was that the reason they came now, but not before? Roxas was stronger? Or… Roxas had more strength within him to lend to his control over other Nobodies, whether it belonged to him or not.

Vanitas.

 _Bingo,_ Vanitas drawled.

“Alright,” Roxas said, focusing his attention on the lead Samurai. “Follow me, then. But stay out of sight. Warn me if you sense any Heartless or Nobodies, especially anyone else from the Organization.”

As one, all four Samurai bent their heads in acquiescence, and vanished from sight, followed closely by their entourage of Dusks.

Roxas proceeded towards the end of the tunnel he’d created, brooding over the Organization. After his memories were restored, what then? Go back to The World That Never Was to try and challenge Xemnas again? He didn’t have the element of surprise anymore; the Organization knew he was a traitor, and had had time to prepare for his return. Axel was actively hunting him, and maybe others were, too.

Should he do something about the man in red, Namine, and Riku first? They were bound to be searching for him, if they’d gone to so much trouble to capture him in the first place. What did they want with him? Something to do with Sora, but beyond that, Roxas had never found out.

And then there was the deal he’d apparently made with Vanitas. Rather than digging his fingers into the damage to his memories, Roxas tried to focus on what he himself could have asked for. He’d rarely wanted anything in particular, and certainly nothing significant enough to make such an arrangement to obtain it.

Before he could give it much consideration, he’d reached the end of the corridor. With a shrug, he decided to think about it more later. He opened the portal to Te Fiti.

Roxas stepped out of the portal onto ashy rock, the sea stretching dark and empty before him. Frowning, he looked around.

He was standing on what looked to be a circle of gigantic, bare stones, nothing contained within but more dark ocean. Roxas wasn’t sure if the term “island” was even appropriate. Where was Te Fiti? This _should_ be the right place. He’d been making targeted portals for months with few issues.

The sky above was full of smoke and heavy clouds, and, when Roxas squinted up at it, more of the strain of Darkness that had infected Motunui.

Darkness erupted out of the rocks to Roxas’s left, and he whirled, summoning his Keyblades.

The black smoke spat sparks and lava as it took form, until a gigantic, vaguely human-shaped monster with firey eyes and mouth roared over him, gathering giant chunks of flaming stone in its hands.

The Samurai and Dusks appeared between Roxas and what had to be Te Ka, ready to attack.

“Wait!” Roxas ordered them. They wouldn’t survive fighting that thing, and he didn’t want to lose that resource yet. He ran forward, flinging his arms up into an offensive block before the first hurled boulders could strike his meager Nobody forces.

The impact shuddered through his arms as chunks of broken obsidian fell away. Te Ka howled at him.

A howl that almost, almost sounded like words.

Roxas froze, and for the first time, really saw the creature in front of him. Took it in, to the greatest extent of his abilities.

This didn’t feel like a magical beast, or a lesser deity, or even a demonic presence. In fact, it didn’t really have a magical presence at all; instead, there just felt like a huge gap in the air, filled with roiling, churning, screaming… _Nothingness._

The Keyblades vanished from Roxas’s hands.

“You’re a Nobody,” Roxas said, numb. “You’re… the same as me.” His fingers dug into the skin over his chest, that constant, awful ache of something missing, a thirst he could never quench, the endless frustration of looking inward and knowing something was _wrong._

Te Ka, about to launch a second barrage, abruptly froze, staring down at him.

Filled with a yearning and horror and sorrow he didn’t understand, Roxas reached out to her.

Te Ka began to lean in.

_Yearning yearning yearning we’re the same, the same, the same, it hurts –_

Roxas cried out as darkness sprang from his chest, an awful, ugly sensation, all the air choked out of his lungs for one horrible moment as a strange creature almost like a Heartless but _not_ clawed its way out of him –

Te Ka reared back, snarling, and too fast to scream, her hand slammed into Roxas, sending him tumbling into the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Kudos and comments much appreciated.


	2. Heart of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Roxas and Maui just Do Not Get Along.
> 
> Thanks so much for the support! It’s super motivating to know other people enjoy what I do. :)
> 
> Chapter warnings: All the spoilers for Moana. Too much teen angst.

Roxas groaned awake, every muscle sore, every bone aching. He opened his eyes and met Moana’s as she bent over him and called his name.

“We need to stop meeting like this,” he said.

Moana gave a shaky laugh and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank goodness! I thought you might be… Are you alright? What are you doing here? How did you _get_ here?”

“I’m fine,” Roxas assured her, pushing himself upright. “Where is ‘here’?” It looked like another rocky island, but one spike of stone instead of an island-sized circle. One very _tall_ spike—they were standing on top of the lone mountain, and the distance back down to the ocean was daunting, to say the least.

“The entrance to Lalotai, apparently,” Moana said, a tad tartly, as she glared at someone behind Roxas. “Though _I_ don’t see anything.”

Roxas turned and locked eyes with a huge bear of a man covered neck to toes in tattoos that all but radiated magic. Face twisted into a skeptical frown, his attention turned to Moana. Foreboding and menace filled his eyes.

“That’s because it requires a human sacrifice,” he said.

Moana gasped and stepped back. The man waited one more beat, eyes ticking to Roxas to check for a reaction he wouldn’t get. Then he grinned.

“Just kidding!” The man blew the ground clear with a great heaving gust, revealing a carved face. He launched into a ritual dance and chanting, the finale seeing him leap into the air and land with fists on the ground. He watched gleefully as both Roxas and Moana yelped and stumbled, the stone beneath their feet opening its mouth to a gaping maw.

“Who is _this_ guy?” Roxas asked Moana.

Affronted, the man’s spine went stiff. “What, you don’t even _recognize_ me? I’m _Maui!_ Shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero to all!”

“Oh,” Roxas said, unimpressed. From the story Sina had told him, he’d expected Maui to be more like Te Ka in size and power, and less…human.

Maui drew back, sputtering.

“What did I tell you?” Moana smirked and crossed her arms. “No one’s hero.”

“He’s like five, what would he know?” Maui snapped back at her. He narrowed his eyes at Roxas. “How did you even get out here, kid?”

“I don’t remember,” Roxas lied. Easier to rest on that and let them draw their own conclusions than try to create a plausible explanation. He had to keep what he was and what he could do a secret.

“But you still remember me, right?” Moana asked, grabbing his wrist in tangible desperation.

Roxas nodded quickly, wide-eyed. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He hadn’t realized she cared that much.

Moana let out a heavy sigh of relief. “You’ve got some bad luck with memory loss, huh?” She punched his shoulder affectionately.

“I guess,” Roxas said weakly. Maybe he could tell her the truth later. If only Maui weren’t here. Time to change the subject. “So why are we going down there?”

“Ohhhh no.” Maui tossed his hair back, sneering down his nose at Roxas. “Lalotai, _Realm of Monsters_ , is no place for a scrawny little washed-up amnesiac _twig_. Go home, kid.”

Roxas’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“He doesn’t need to go home,” Moana cut in, before looking with concern at Roxas. “Lalotai might be too dangerous for you, though, Roxas. Our boat is tethered at the base of this mountain. Do you think you can climb down?”

Even Moana thought he was helpless. “It’s not too dangerous for _you?_ ”

“I don’t keep getting knocked out and waking up with amnesia,” Moana said, raising her eyebrows.

Roxas paused. He’d never thought about it before, but that _was_ a frequent occurrence for him, wasn’t it? At least three times that he remembered. Was it just a coincidence? Or…

“What, that’s seriously a recurring thing?” When his response was only double-teamed frosty stares, Maui shrugged. “Just curious.”

Moana took Roxas’s hands in her own. “Please, just wait in the boat, okay? We need to get Maui’s hook. I don’t want anything to happen to you because of him.”

“Hey!” Maui protested.

Roxas looked at Moana, torn. On the one hand, he wanted to keep his Keyblades and magic a secret for now, and going someplace explicitly dangerous was not the best way to do that. Having time to himself to figure out what had happened with Te Ka was high on his priority list, too. On the other hand, if something happened to Moana, when he could have been there to protect her, but hadn’t been…

“Alright, I’m bored. Going to get my hook now,” Maui said, and without further ado, leapt down into the entrance to Lalotai, whooping as he went.

Moana dropped Roxas’s hands and hurried to the edge of the entrance. “Wait in the boat,” she called over her shoulder. “Please. For me.”

Then she took a deep breath, and jumped.

Roxas stepped forward. He stared down into the maw, hesitating.

One beat too long. The stone mouth closed with a snap, and Roxas stumbled back.

“Damn!” Roxas kicked at the ground, but the entrance refused to open back up for him. He summoned Oblivion.

 _You know if you open it that way, those two are going to ask questions you don’t want to answer,_ Vanitas told him. He gave the impression of lounging in the back of Roxas’s mind.

Roxas lowered Oblivion, mouth tight. “Where were you earlier?” he grumbled out loud, sullenly dismissing the Keyblade. “I could’ve used your help with Te Ka.” Assuming Vanitas was actually _capable_ of helping.

Vanitas fell silent.

“Oh, come on. Seriously?” With no new hints forthcoming, however, he shrugged it off and opened a portal to the bottom of the mountain.

His Samurai were waiting in the Darkness. They hovered around him, almost fussy. “I’m fine,” Roxas assured them. “Thanks for saving me.” His lead Samurai had had the presence of mind to make a portal as he fell, and deposit him on the nearest safe land.

“I’m fine,” Roxas assured them. “Thanks for saving me.” His lead Samurai had had the presence of mind to make a portal as he fell, and deposited him on the nearest safe land.

 _We are yours, Master Thirteen,_ she said simply.

Roxas nodded to her. She had developed two small, purple spikes positioned on her head almost like ears, and was now noticeably shorter than the other Samurai.

He paused in front of the exit, looking back at her. “You don’t remember the person you used to be, do you?” he asked.

_No, my liege. Only masters remember Before._

“Oh.” Roxas looked away. “Well, if you do remember anything, let me know.” It would be nice to have someone to talk to again. Someone who _knew_.

_Yes, Master._

Roxas gave her a curt nod, and returned to the light.

He slumped on the deck of the canoe, dangling his feet in the water as he watched Hei Hei peck at the wood next to a pile of seeds and berries.

What was that not-Heartless thing that had burst out of him like that? Roxas had never seen or felt anything like it before, and from the intrusive memories, Sora hadn’t, either.

“Do you know what it was?” Roxas said out loud, though the question was directed inwards.

 _…An Unversed,_ Vanitas answered grudgingly.

“What’s that?”

 _Creatures made of darkness and negative emotions,_ Vanitas explained. The silence had stretched for minutes before he elaborated, _They… come from me. Guess my being in here has side effects._

Roxas stilled, contemplating all the implications of that.

“Did you make that one?” he asked at last. He remembered the sudden surge of _yearning_ before the Unversed emerged. “Or was it…”

Vanitas didn’t answer, and Roxas shot to his feet, frustrated.

“What’s your problem?” he shouted. “If we really have a deal like you say, you need to tell me things! You don’t want to explain what I need to remember, fine, but you have to explain _something!_ Don’t just keep me in the dark because, because… I don’t even know why! What’s the point in not telling me things I need to know for us to work together? _Do you want my help or not!_ ”

Vanitas’s presence in his mind bristled _. If you had half a brain, I wouldn’t_ have _to explain it!_ he snapped back.

“You mean if I had a _Heart_ , you wouldn’t need to explain?” Roxas retorted icily.

 _That does explain why Nobodies are so_ useless, Vanitas sneered.

Roxas shut out anything further Vanitas had to say. Fine. He could get his memories alone. Once he remembered how Vanitas had gotten inside his head, he’d remember how to kick him out. Whatever he’d wanted from the guy, he’d figure out how to get for himself.

He sat back down, holding his knees and staring moodily at the water.

Not twenty minutes later, Moana and Maui erupted out of the sea, propelled by a geyser. Roxas watched as they fell onto the shore, Maui’s body flashing pig-lizard-bug before he crashed onto the stone shore with a shark head in place of his own. Roxas stared long enough to make sure Moana wasn’t hurt, then looked down again.

After a conversation Roxas couldn’t quite hear, and what sounded like some more attempts by Maui to change form, the two of them returned to the boat.

“We’re back!” Moana announced, untying the boat. Maui gave a noncommittal grunt and collapsed, dropping a gigantic bone fish hook beside him.

“Welcome back,” Roxas muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Moana asked as she got them underway.

“Someone gave him the memo that we’re sailing into certain death,” Maui said sourly.

“No, we’re not.” Moana looked from Roxas to Maui and back again. “Come on, guys, cheer up! Next stop, Te Fiti!”

“And with my hook not working, Te Ka is gonna kill us.”

Roxas turned around to stare at Maui, upper lip curling. Was this seriously a demigod? He should have been on even keel with someone like Hercules, so why was he so mopey?

“I’ve seen _monkeys_ with more fight in them than you,” Roxas said. Like Abu. Heck, even Demyx looked intimidating next to this guy. “Moana and I can deal with Te Ka ourselves if you’re too _chicken_.”

Maui’s head shot up, face dark. “What did you just say to me, toothpick?”

Roxas got to his feet, and Maui followed suit, using his greater height and bulk to loom threateningly.

“You heard me.” Roxas closed the distance as much as he could without having to stand on his tiptoes to meet Maui’s eyes. This close, he could see one of the little tattoo Mauis had put up its fists, spoiling for a fight. Roxas felt the same way. “But actually, I take it back. After all, even _Hei Hei_ is more useful than you.”

“Oh, that’s it,” Maui thundered, reaching for his hook.

Moana dashed between them. “Guys! Guys. Cut it out.” She turned a reproving look on Roxas. “Why are you acting like this?”

Roxas looked away. “Sorry,” he muttered, because that was easier than answering questions.

“Sorry…?” Moana prompted. Roxas’s mouth twisted, and he reluctantly met Maui’s belligerent glare.

“Sorry, Maui,” he gritted out.

Maui stared him down until Moana elbowed him in the gut.

“It’s fine, kid.” He plastered on a tight, cold smile. “Puberty sucks for everyone involved.”

Roxas flushed. Moana’s hand on his shoulder was the only thing that kept his jaw clamped shut. That seemed to be enough to satisfy Maui, and the demigod glanced at Moana.

“Alright, daughter of the chief, what do you expect us to do now, with my hook not working?”

No longer pinned under Maui’s or Moana’s eyes, Roxas yanked away and tucked himself into the prow, resting his chin on his knees and determinedly ignoring the pair of them. He didn’t want any part of the _heart to heart_ they’d launched into.

Instead he dozed off, and dreamed restlessly of Sora.

 

***

 

Roxas watched listlessly as Moana helped Maui get his shapeshifting sorted, working up from beetle to giant hawk. He didn’t even flinch when Maui turned into a whale in midair to playfully soak the boat when he came crashing down.

After they were done celebrating Maui’s recovery, Moana kneeled down next to Roxas.

“Alright, Roxas, talk to me.” She placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Mood swings!” Maui called over cheerfully, and though his teasing lacked malice this time, Roxas still didn’t appreciate it. He glanced over his shoulder at the demigod, willing him to just _go away_.

But Maui stuck around like a blister that wouldn’t heal, so Roxas turned dull eyes back to the water. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Whoof, that is one _bad_ case of Adolescence.” Maui laughed at his unfunny joke. He did that a lot.

Moana gave him an exasperated look. “Not. Helping.” Maui held up his hands in surrender, and Moana squeezed Roxas’s shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But I’m here if you need me. Okay?”

Roxas nodded. Would she still say that if she knew what he was?

Moana stood and went back to her sailing lessons with Maui. The day progressed with little other conversation.

“Keep this up,” Maui said through a full mouth over dinner, “and you’ll be a Master Wayfinder in no time, Moana.”

Roxas’s blood ran cold. What was that word…? Wayfinder? Why did that sound so…

He shook his head. He’d never heard that word before, and neither had Sora. Never. _Never._

For once, he didn’t dream of Sora.

a blue-haired girl presenting three star-shaped charms _(Aqua)_

a brown-haired blue-eyed young Xemnas laughing as he ruffled [Roxas’s] hair _(Terra)_

a mirror image but it wasn’t him _it wasn’t him_ it wasn’t himitwasn’thimitwasn’thim _(Ve – )_

 _My name is_ Roxas _!_

Roxas woke with a strangled gasp. Heat stung his eyes and soaked his cheeks.

“Roxas!” Moana was by his side in a second. “Did you have a nightmare? Are you okay?”

Roxas choked out wet, heaving breaths, and buried his face against her shoulder. Moana held him, her embrace awkward and unpracticed, but _sincere_. That was all Roxas wanted, he just wanted the world to be _honest_ with him, who _was_ he, why couldn’t he just be _Roxas_ , he just wanted to be himself and _no one else_ –

“Te Ka incoming,” Maui warned.

Moana and Roxas both looked up at the billowing black smoke above the barrier island. When had they even gotten here, Roxas wondered numbly. Moana gave him one last, tight hug, then pulled away to man her post at the till. She took something green and glowing out of her necklace and handed it over to Maui.

The Heart of Te Fiti. Roxas stared at it, then turned wide eyes on Te Ka.

Te Fiti’s Nobody.

His chance to remember.

Roxas launched himself into a Dark portal to the barrier island, the door snapping shut, cutting off Moana calling his name.

When he emerged on the mountainous stone circle, it was just in time to see a blinding flash of purple light, a thunderous crack, and the ship thrown back, carried away as Moana and Maui clung on.

Te Ka screamed, her hand grasping at empty air. Roxas could _feel_ her frustration and pain.

He took a step toward her, Oblivion and Oathkeeper leaping into his hands. It was now or never.

She spun on him and roared.

Across the surface of his mind came a faint wail. _My Heart… Give back my Heart!_

Roxas stopped short.

“Why do you want it?” he demanded, the grips of his Keyblades biting into his palms. “It will _change_ you! You won’t _be_ you anymore! You’ll just be the person that other people _want_ you to be, because it’s more _convenient_ for them!” His eyes squeezed shut, fighting the burning, his chest burned, his face, everything burned. “And they think they’re doing what’s best for you, even though no one ever asked if that’s what _you_ want! What’s wrong with how you are right now? What’s wrong with _m_ – ”

Hot, ashy, living stone pressed against his forehead. Roxas shuddered, and opened his eyes.

Te Ka had pressed her brow to his, gently as a lava monster was capable of.

 _Little one,_ she whispered. Strained, fighting to hold on to this moment of clarity. _My pain is not yours, nor yours mine._

_But thank you._

She drew back. Roxas pressed his lips together, thin and bloodless. He opened a portal to the dead shore in the middle of the barrier island and sat there. Thinking. Waiting. That was all he could ever do.

The next morning, Moana returned, Maui not far behind her. Roxas watched their struggle to reach the center island and did nothing. The blast of power when Maui’s hook shattered rustled his hair.

“Roxas?!” Moana gasped as the ocean finally carried her to shore. “You’re alive, thank goodness. I’ll be right back, I have to restore the Heart – ”

Roxas turned, staring at her as she clambered to the top of the rock. If that’s what she wanted, where was she going?

Oh. She didn’t realize what Te Ka was.

Roxas rested his chin on his knees, waiting for her to figure it out.

It didn’t take long. Moments later, Moana was holding the Heart aloft to get Te Ka’s attention, bathing them all in green light. She descended the mountain like a goddess, and commanded the ocean to part so Te Ka could pass. It obeyed, and Moana strode forward to meet her.

 _There goes your chance to use her power yourself,_ Vanitas’s voice said from far away, using pure spite to shove through Roxas’s mental wall.

“Shut up.”

Restored, Te Fiti rose up, returning to the center island, burrowing her fingers in the dead earth to revive the grass, flowers, and trees that had once grown there. Moana and Maui were soon by Roxas’s side.

“How did _you_ get over here?” Maui asked him, arching an eyebrow. Roxas ignored him.

Te Fiti lifted the three of them on one giant, moss-covered palm. Moana went to her knees and bowed her head reverently, then turned to give a pointed look to Maui and Roxas. They both hastily knelt, though Maui only on one knee.

Under the mother island’s scrutiny, Maui stood. “Te Fiti! How ya been?” Maui beamed at her, then wilted under her chilly, unimpressed stare. “Look, what I did was…wrong. I have no excuse. I’m sorry.”

Te Fiti eyed him. Then, she smiled, and lifted her other hand, opening it to reveal Maui’s hook.

Gleeful, Maui looked to Moana.

“It would be rude to refuse a gift from a goddess,” Moana laughed.

Maui grabbed it, whooping. Moana elbowed him in the gut. He coughed, bowed, said, “Thank you,” as seriously as he could manage. He shifted into a bug and flew away.

Roxas rolled his eyes. Te Fiti’s gaze fell on him, and he flinched.

 _Come here, child,_ she murmured.

Not wanting to be rude to a goddess, Roxas stepped into her empty hand.

She lifted him higher and bent her head until their brows touched.

 _I will heal your wounds,_ she said.

Power that could create life itself swept over Roxas’s mind, repairing the cracked platform, and with it, restoring the missing memories.

All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I’m implying what you think I’m implying. ;) But maaaan, I started a chapter with the main character waking up twice in a row…
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated.


	3. Unchained Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah I was totally implying what y’all thought I was implying
> 
> Chapter warnings: friends(?) yelling at each other, Vanitas is rude

“Roxas! This man speaks nonsense,” declared a deep, unfamiliar voice. Roxas tore his eyes away from the man in black – Axel? – to see a man equally bedecked in red, face hidden beneath cloth wrapping. Orange eyes bore into him, merciless and unforgiving.

“Roxas! Don’t let him deceive you,” Axel snapped, yanking Roxas’s eyes back to determined, fiery green.

Roxas looked back and forth between them, confused and overwhelmed.

“Roxas!”

“Roxas!”

_RoxasRoxasRoxasRoxasRoxas_

Roxas clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. What did they want from him? Who were they? Why were they here? Why couldn’t he _remember?_

_No one would miss me._

A cold, rueful laugh in the back of his mind. _Man, I know the feeling._

On the verge of calling out for his friends, Roxas froze, eyes snapping open.

He was on that strange stained glass platform again. And standing in front of him was –

“Sora?” Roxas said, dubious. Black hair, gold eyes, too tall, too old, every inch of him radiating Darkness. “No, wait… who are you?”

“The name’s Vanitas,” the boy drawled - no, the man. He was maybe about Axel’s age. He sized Roxas up. “Who are _you?_ ”

“I’m Roxas.” His brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“Not sure,” Vanitas admitted. “Last thing I remember is my Heart shattering. I think I was asleep somewhere, and you woke me up. Did you know your memories are locked down?”

“I – you – what?” His memories were… locked? A cocktail of urgency and dread pumped through his veins.

Vanitas snorted. “Come on, don’t disappoint me already. What can you do to things that are locked?”

Locked… So he needed…

The strange, giant Key from before appeared in his hand. Vanitas grinned.

“Maybe you’re not hopeless.” He extended his arm and pointed down at the center of the platform.

Roxas’s jaw firmed, and he aimed the Key where Vanitas had indicated.

A beam of light shot from the Key into the floor, something clicked, and Roxas remembered. He staggered, gasping.

After moments – an eternity – Roxas looked up, cold fury in his eyes.

Axel had lied to him. Xemnas had used him. Riku had kidnapped him. And the man in red… he had _violated_ him.

His head snapped up, glaring, preparing to go back –

“You got a plan?” Vanitas asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Roxas summoned Oblivion and Oathkeeper. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

Vanitas’s eyes widened, drinking in the dual Keyblades. Then, his mouth twisted into a razor-sharp smile.

“You’re at a disadvantage on that stage,” Vanitas said, jerking his chin upwards. “As we speak, that fake world is being manipulated so you wake up where they want you. If you like,” he went on, casually. “I could help you get out of there.”

Roxas swept his eyes over Vanitas. Not a Heartless, nor a Nobody, nor anything Roxas had ever encountered. His presence almost felt like the girl Sora was friends with, except pure Dark instead of Light. And he had Sora’s face.

“What even are you?” Roxas asked.

Vanitas groaned. “Explaining is such a pain.”

“Too bad,” Roxas said flatly. “Tell me.” Or you’re an enemy, his tone warned. Oathkeeper and Oblivion were still in his hands.

“Ugh, fine.” Vanitas eyed him narrowly. “But pay attention and fill in the blanks for yourself. I’m only telling you once.”

“Alright.”

“Once upon a time,” Vanitas began, gesturing at Roxas with derision, “there was a boy who looked like you. His name was Ventus.”

Roxas’s brow furrowed. “Looked like… me?”

“That’s right. Don’t interrupt. Anyway, like you, he could wield a Keyblade. Except he was soft and weak and timid, so his Master made the wise decision to divide his Heart, setting aside the whimpery little Light and giving the strong, brilliant Dark a body of his own.”

“Oh.” Roxas saw where this was going. Vanitas was the Darkness from this Ventus guy’s Heart. “Then why do you look like Sora? And… if Ventus looks like me…”

“Well, see,” Vanitas went on, with a mix of irritation and disgust, “the Light was _so_ pathetic that he couldn’t even _exist_ by himself. Luckily for him, when Master went to dump his dying carcass somewhere pleasant, there just happened to be a newborn Heart that lent him the strength to live. Even a stupid _baby_ was stronger than he was! And somehow _I_ ended up with an improved version of that brat’s face.” Vanitas tugged at his own cheek, lips twisted into something truly bitter.

Roxas looked out into the shadows past the platform, mulling that over. “Then, Ventus and Sora were connected for Sora’s whole life, and as a result, I look like Ventus?”

“That about sums it up,” Vanitas agreed.

“You said your Heart shattered, though. What happened?”

“Oh.” Vanitas shrugged. “I tried to put us back together, but Ventus was an idiot about it as usual, and he shattered us. I don’t remember anything after that, but if I’m here now, and you’re that brat’s Nobody, we probably both ended up in his Heart, and I got pulled in here when you separated. No idea where our body is.”

Roxas looked around. This place was probably… inside him. Somehow. He narrowed his eyes at Vanitas. “Well, look for it yourself. You don’t belong here.”

“Ha! And what, _you_ belong somewhere?” Vanitas sneered. Roxas stiffened. “Loosen up, kid. It’s in our best interests to stick together.”

“How do you figure?” he scoffed.

“Because,” Vanitas breathed, “you can help me get something I want. And I can help you get something you want.”

Roxas frowned. “Like what?” He didn’t want anything but revenge, and he wanted to get it with his own two hands.

Vanitas leaned forward, eyes burning. “Our own existence. _Real_ bodies, not dependent on anyone else. _Freedom._ ” He extended his hand.

Roxas’s chest tightened, fingers digging into the cloth over where his Heart should be. But if that Heart ever came back… he wouldn’t be himself anymore. And why should Sora care what Roxas wanted? He never had before, or else they wouldn’t be so different.

He’d been put into that fake Twilight Town for a reason. Most of Sora’s memories had come back to him there. Roxas didn’t know anything about the man in red or Namine, but Riku’s goal _had_ to be restoring Sora. At Roxas’s expense.

So his choices were to disappear, to spend the rest of his life running from Riku and the Organization, or…

Roxas grasped Vanitas’s hand.

“Alright,” he said. “You’ve got a deal.”

They shook on it.

Roxas opened his eyes in the Struggle ring, and shoved away from the digital constructs crowding him. Oblivion sprang into his hand. He lifted it, and opened a Dark portal.

Bracing himself, he strode towards it.

His foot touched the shadows. Pain seared through his head, invisible chains struggling to hold him in place. Metallic screeching rang in his ears, a violent tremor seizing his chest. Faintly, in the distance, he could hear Namine’s voice.

“DiZ! Riku! He’s trying to leave!”

The man who used to be Riku was there in a heartbeat, brandishing Soul Eater.

_Help me!_ Roxas snarled into the void, reaching for the Dusks he knew were nearby, the more reliable Samurai back in The World That Never Was. He put every ounce of command he could into the summons, and Riku reeled back, swarmed by Nobodies.

Roxas put all his might into pulling free, forcing his body into the portal. Power surged through him – Vanitas’s Darkness. The pain abruptly diminished, as if it had wrenched free of him.

Step by step… almost there…

_Set an exit point!_ Vanitas reminded him.

_Somewhere safe from the Heartless,_ Roxas thought frantically as the ringing in his ears thundered louder and louder, chains beginning to give. _Somewhere safe from Axel and the Organization. Somewhere new, new and different, buy some time before they find me…_

He ripped free of the chains. Glass shattered. Roxas plunged into Darkness, fell and fell and fell.

He hit water, and knew no more.

 

***

 

A girl who looked like Kairi. Black hair, Sora’s eyes. He held her hand as she faded away.

_Who will I eat ice cream with?_

 

***

 

“Xion!” Roxas reared back, and fell to his hands and knees, panting. “I forgot about _Xion!_ ”

His memories of his year in the Organization were no longer spotty and confused. He remembered everything, _everything,_ all of it.

And Xion.

Roxas dropped the mental barrier he’d put between himself and Vanitas.

_Oh, so_ now I _get the welcome mat,_ Vanitas drawled.

_I’m not in the mood,_ Roxas snapped. _It’s really possible for us to exist on our own, right?_

_Should be._ Roxas could almost hear Vanitas shrug. _There are infinite Worlds out there, kid. Infinite Worlds means infinite possibilities._

_So then it should be possible for Xion to exist by herself, too!_

_Who?_

Roxas scowled at the insolent tone. _If you can hear what I’m thinking, you can see what I’m remembering._

_That’s kind of presumptive, don’t you think?_ Vanitas said, smug as could be. _Just because A equals B doesn’t mean B equals C._

_That doesn’t even make sense,_ Roxas hissed. _Have you been seeing my memories or not?_

_Well, yeah._

_So you know who Xion is._

Another mental shrug. Roxas resisted the urge to go in there and shake him.

_Is it possible to bring her back or not? Just…_ Roxas deflated. _Just tell me that._

Vanitas gave a derisive snort. _What did I_ just _say, kid?_

Infinite Worlds. Infinite possibilities.

Roxas sat back on his heels. _You really think we can do it?_

Vanitas laughed. _Trust me, kid. A little training, and you’ll have the power to do_ anything _. All we need are the blueprints, and I’m sure some World out there has something we can use. We just have to look._

_Alright,_ Roxas said, fingers curling into fists. _Fine. Let’s do this._

_That’s what I like to hear._

Roxas stood, and looked up into Te Fiti’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said, as heartfelt as a Nobody could be.

She smiled, then turned her attention to Moana. They touched foreheads. Te Fiti lowered them both to the ground. A wave of her fingers created a new boat for Moana to sail home on.

Moana turned to Roxas. “Remember anything yet?” she asked, eyes strangely wistful.

Roxas took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you.” No more lies. No more secrets between friends.

He told Moana almost everything as they sailed back to Motunui. Heartless, Nobodies, Organization XIII, Axel, Xion. Riku, DiZ, Namine, and the fake Twilight Town. Sora.

The only story he withheld was Vanitas’s. That wasn’t his to tell.

“Wow,” Moana said, when he was finally done. She blew her hair out of her face. “That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah.” Roxas lay on his back, staring up at the stars.

“Do you think… could those Heartless things come to Motunui?”

Roxas thought about it. “Maybe,” he allowed. He’d opened a lot of Dark portals here, and now that Te Fiti had her Heart back, she’d be a tempting target. But she was also more active in her World than any other Heart of the World Roxas knew of. “Te Fiti can protect this World better than most, though. And if worse comes to worst…”

“I can always ask Maui for help,” Moana finished the sentence, sounding relieved.

Roxas frowned. He’d been about to say _he_ could help. What use was that Maui guy, anyway?

_He did help her out a lot more than you did,_ Vanitas jeered.

_Shut up._

Silence stretched, peaceful and easy.

“You know, I…” Moana trailed off. Shook her head, and started again. “If you ever need me, Roxas, I’m here for you.”

More kindness, unasked for and undeserved. Roxas stood, and Moana followed suit. “Thank you, Moana. If… if I can, I’ll be there for you, too.”

“I know,” Moana said, and hugged him.

After a minute, she drew back. “Are you sure you want to leave before we get to Motunui? We’re almost there. Mom and Dad would want to say goodbye.”

Roxas shook his head. “I’ve been here too long. Axel or Riku could find me any minute now. I won’t risk putting you or your people in danger. Tell the others that I said thank you for everything.”

Moana nodded. “I will. Good luck, Roxas.”

“Thanks,” Roxas said. “Goodbye, Moana.”

He opened the Darkness, and was gone.

 

***

 

His Samurai bowed in greeting as Roxas stepped into the portal corridor. The lead Samurai was even shorter than she had been before, standing at half Roxas’s height. The spikes on her head had grown, mostly white but tipped in purple.

Roxas paused, regarding her with bemusement. “You really don’t remember anything?”

_No, my liege._

“Not even your name?” He crossed his arms. Thinking of her as his ‘lead Samurai’ was starting to feel weird. Like he was refusing to acknowledge the signs of individuality that she’d begun to show. He wanted to call her by a proper name, if he could.

_My name?_ she repeated, for once with inflection, though it was shaky and uncertain. _My… name…_

Roxas watched her struggle with it. She visibly shrank another inch or so.

_Ta… mo…_

“Tamo. Okay.” Roxas nodded, relieved. “Tamo, can you tell if Axel or Riku are nearby?”

She shivered, then looked up with eyes just like his. _Master Eight is near, my liege, but you can evade him._

Roxas shook his head. “No, I want to talk to him. Lead me there.” He paused. Stared at her for a moment. All things considered, it was probably time to stop giving her orders and start making requests. He didn’t want to be the same type of leader as Xemnas. “…Please.”

She tilted her head, unblinking. _Very well. R… Roxassssss._

As he followed her through the Darkness, Roxas couldn’t help but eye his other Samurai, who remained unchanged. Tamo hadn’t spontaneously evolved. He’d just started talking to her more, thinking of her as her own entity more. Thanks to Vanitas, he had more power, too.

Now that he was looking for it, he could sense them mentally leaning in to his attention, like cats who were hoping to be pet.

The Organization was wrong about Nobodies, Roxas decided. Probably everyone was.

_Vanitas, you knew about Nobodies before we met, right?_ he asked.

_More than you,_ Vanitas said, laughing.

_That’s why I want to ask,_ Roxas pressed on, ignoring the tone, because the words were true. _You don’t think your body is a Nobody, do you? When we met, you were pretty confident about calling it ‘my body’ instead of ‘my Nobody.’ Why? How could you tell? What am I missing?_

_All you Nobodies are so fixated on this existential crap,_ Vanitas complained. _Why does it matter?_

Roxas looked at the three featureless Samurai flanking him, the twelve Dusks behind them. Tamo in front. They followed him. Not because he was a more advanced Nobody; no one would have been able to sway them away from Xemnas’s thrall if that were the case. He had some kind of _connection_ with them.

_I want to help them,_ Roxas replied. _But I can’t do anything if I don’t_ know _anything._

Vanitas fell silent. Unlike most of Vanitas’s silences, this one felt contemplative rather than surly. Before Roxas could press him further, he spotted a familiar figure up ahead.

_Go,_ he told the Samurai. To Tamo, _I don’t want him thinking I’m here to fight._

He gave her the choice, though, and he could feel the moment she realized that.

_I will… wait with the others,_ she said, and vanished with the rest of them. _But I will not be far if he attacks you, Roxas._

_Thank you,_ Roxas replied.

Axel hadn’t noticed Roxas yet. He was pacing back and forth, an agitated hand scrubbing through his hair, a haunted look on his face. That by itself was almost answer to Roxas’s reason for coming here, but he had to make sure.

“Axel,” he called.

Axel whipped around to face him. His eyes narrowed. “Roxas?” His lips twisted into the dry semblance of a smile. “Finally decide to come back with me?”

They both knew the answer, so Roxas didn’t bother voicing it. “You remembered her, didn’t you?”

Axel inhaled sharply. “I… yeah, I did. How did you…?”

“Just had a feeling.” Xion had thought she was returning to Sora, but if _Roxas_ remembering caused someone _else_ to remember her, too… that suggested she was here with him, instead.

Hopefully that would make it easier to bring her back.

“Congratulations,” Axel said, dry as the desert. “Look at you, turning into a real boy.”

Roxas turned to leave. He’d gotten what he came here for.

“Hold it,” Axel barked.

…Weird. Why had he stopped? There was no reason to. No _good_ reason.

“You remember everything now?” He didn’t get a response, but Axel pushed on anyway. “Then you know why you have to come back. If you don’t, Xemnas will – ”

“I don’t care what Xemnas does,” Roxas said, rounding on Axel again. “I never expected anything from _him_ in the first place. If he wants to destroy me, he can come and try it himself.”

Axel’s laughter was empty and hollow, lacking even Vanitas’s commitment to being a jerk. “Wow, Mr. Confident,” he said, shaking his head. “It almost sounded like you were taking a jab at _me_.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Roxas shot back with every drop of venom he could muster. Axel’s fists clenched.

“What was I supposed to do?!” he blazed. “You never listen to me! You just ran off like – I didn’t want to lose you _too!_ If we’re friends, why couldn’t you stay with me?! Friends are supposed to stick with each other, no matter what!”

“Friends are supposed to _trust_ each other, too!” Roxas snarled. His chest throbbed. “Friends are supposed to be _honest!_ You never told me anything, except when you were lying to me! Is that what _friends_ do?”

“It was for your own good!”

_“You don’t get to decide that!”_ Roxas’s fingernails dug into the meat of his palms. He never wanted to hear those words ever again. “I wanted _answers!_ If friends are supposed to stick with each other, if you _really_ would have missed me, why didn’t you come _with_ me!”

_How could you betray me,_ a quieter part of him wailed. _I trusted you. I wish I could still trust you. But you lied, you betrayed me, betrayed betrayed_ betrayed

Darkness erupted.

Huh. That was weird. His body felt… really weak, all of a sudden. Was Axel fighting some kind of monster…? He couldn’t really tell, he was so tired…

_We’re getting out of here, kid!_ Vanitas said, and yanked Roxas through an exit portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally past the point where Roxas has to spontaneously remember stuff at random intervals. In a sense the end of this fic's prologue, I guess? Maybe I'll indicate arcs in the chapters later on, we'll see how it goes.
> 
> On Tamo: Look. Disney had broadcasting rights at some point, okay. It’s only sort of cheating!
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated.


	4. Welcome to Gravity Falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Sorry not sorry for a slow update. Probably gonna be the norm from now on, been busy at work and also struggling with depression, fun times. 
> 
> Warnings: Vague mentions of unicorn gore. Use of Google translate.

The twilight-soaked forest Roxas landed in had a natural aura of nostalgia to it, the steady warmth of late summer filling the air. He couldn’t help but think of Twilight Town, though this World was more heavily forested, with mountains in the near distance. There were lots of strange animal noises here, too, as opposed to Twilight Town’s generic birdsong. 

He walked aimlessly. After a few minutes, the local fauna went silent, and Roxas caught the edge of childlike chatter nearby. He set course for it; people could answer his questions even if they were children. 

The forest was dense enough that he didn’t realize how close they were until he stepped out of the brush right in front of them, and they all stared at each other.

Roxas gaped at the group of four girls – three a few years younger and quite a bit shorter than him, one about his age but half a head taller. It was difficult to make out much about their features, given that they were in post-combat disarray and generously splashed with rainbow-colored… that wasn’t blood, was it?

_I think it is,_ Vanitas said, so delighted by the colorful gore that he’d apparently been cheered out of his sulk. _The tall one has a hatchet!_

Maybe he could find someone else to ask about the World. Roxas took a nervous step back, then yelped as the three smaller girls surrounded him. He fought the urge to summon his Keyblades; covered in blood or not, these were still kids, weren’t they? And rainbow blood wasn’t _human_ blood. There could be a rational explanation for this. Right?

“Hey there, dreamboat,” said the wide-set one with an incongruously deep voice.

“나의 거칠은 환상 처럼 냄새,” breathed the shortest one, wearing glasses and speaking a different language, which Roxas could regrettably still understand.

“Where have you been all my life,” the long-haired girl crowed, most gore-spattered of her fellows with a mouth full of metal.

Roxas turned pleading eyes on the tall redhead, since she was the only one who hadn’t swarmed him. She snorted out a laugh, which did not reassure Roxas in the slightest.

“Girls, girls,” she said, sauntering over and using her long arms to drape over all three at once. “Give the dude some space.” Meeting Roxas’s gaze, she quirked an eyebrow. “You lost? I haven’t seen you around before.”

“Yeah,” Roxas agreed. As good an excuse as any. “I’m Roxas.”

“Wendy,” the tall girl introduced herself. “And this is Mabel,” metal-mouth, “Candy,” glasses, “and Grenda,” deep voice. “Welcome to Gravity Falls.”

“Hi,” Roxas said, since he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘nice to meet you.’ Gravity Falls, huh. Well, as a World name, it made more sense than ‘The World That Never Was.’

“Why don’t you come with us to the Mystery Shack?” Mabel suggested. “You could use our phone to call home. It’s toll-free for a cutie like you.” She batted her eyelashes.

_There’s something we need there, so take her up on that,_ Vanitas said brusquely.

“That’d be great, thanks,” Roxas said, hoping his moment of silence could be interpreted as hesitation. _So you did bring us here on purpose._

_Yes, fine, I did. I’ll…_ The sound of teeth grinding. _I’ll explain later. When you’re alone. For now, get to the Mystery Shack._

Roxas doubted it would be that easy, but it was a start.

The smaller girls led the way, Wendy matching strides with Roxas behind them. “So where’s your folks at?” she asked, resting the small hatchet on her shoulder.

Roxas blinked, then stared at his feet. Did he even have a family? It’s not like Sora’s mom would recognize him, nor did he feel like she was his mother. The Organization didn’t really count, either. He… didn’t have a family.

For something that felt like it should be obvious, the realization hit him in the gut like a sack of bricks. Like _two_ sacks of bricks, as the exact same feeling echoed back at him from Vanitas.

“It’s cool,” Wendy assured him before the silence could become awkward. “You need a place to stay while you’re in town, you can chill at my place.”

Roxas glanced up at her in surprise, and she grinned and tossed him an amicable wink.

_She thinks you’re a runaway,_ Vanitas supplied.

_Yeah, I got that, thanks,_ Roxas retorted. And, well… she wasn’t really wrong, was she? But they’d just met, she knew nothing about him. Why offer that?

“Thanks,” Roxas said at last. Eyes ticking from the rainbow stains on the younger girls, to the ones on Wendy, he ventured, “So, uh… were you guys… painting?”

“Nah.” Wendy rolled her shoulders. “Just turns out that unicorns are real jerks.”

“Oh.” Roxas had never met a unicorn, so he supposed he’d have to take her word for it. “That… sucks, I guess?”

Wendy watched his face from the corner of her eye. “Yeah. Most of the weird stuff around here isn’t too bad, but every once and a while we have to deal with stuff like gnomes, shapeshifters, zombies, cults who want to erase your memory…”

Roxas’s lips curled into a snarl. “Yeah, that’s the worst.”

Wendy eyed him for a moment longer, before her face relaxed into a lopsided smile. “Well, we’re used to it. So if you need any help, just say the word.” She clapped him on the shoulder.

Before Roxas could respond, Mabel launched forward at a run, towards a small wooden cabin with a giant sign declaring ‘Mystery Shack.’ The ‘S’ in ‘Shack’ had become dislodged, and hung upside down.

_So what am I looking for?_ he asked Vanitas as he followed the girls inside.

_Wait til you’re alone, then portal down to the basement,_ Vanitas instructed. _There should be an old red journal on the workbench. You don’t need to take it, just look up a summoning circle._

_Alright._ That sounded simple enough, and if he didn’t need to take it, no one should be the wiser. He could get what he needed without hurting people who’d been kind to him.

Wendy guided Roxas through a shop front over to an old man at the register, as Mabel, Candy, and Grenda dashed deeper into the shack. The old man, wearing glasses, an eye patch, and a weird fez, looked Roxas up and down, suspicion etched into his face.

“Yo, Mr. Pines,” Wendy said. She nodded toward Roxas. “We ran into this kid in the woods. His name’s Roxas. Says he’s lost.” Wendy glanced at Roxas, eyebrow arched as if asking him if he wanted to add anything.

“Yeah, I… ran away from home,” Roxas admitted, staring down at his feet. He didn’t know what kind of expression to make, but at least he didn’t need to lie. Just omit any details about what ‘home’ was.

“Oh yeah?” the man said. His voice was gruff, but there was an odd note in it Roxas didn’t know how to interpret, so he glanced up. The man’s expression had softened, a little. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t mind helpin’ ya. Not for free! You can do some work around the Shack, earn your own way. How’s that sound, kid?”

Roxas relaxed a little. He wasn’t sure why this mean-looking old man was being nice to him too, but he’d take what he could get. “It sounds great. Thank you, um…”

“Stan Pines,” he grunted.

“Thank you, Mr. Pines,” Roxas said, copying Wendy’s form of address, since that seemed safest.

Stan gave a curt nod, then frowned at Wendy. “Don’t have any open beds here right now, though.”

“He can stay at my place,” Wendy said. “Dad won’t mind.”

Stan nodded again, and turned a sharp look on Roxas. “Not gonna have the cops knockin’ at my door lookin’ for ya, am I, kid?”

Roxas shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “They wouldn’t send… cops.” Riku and Axel might show up looking for him, but he didn’t think either one of them would get the local law enforcement involved.

Stan’s eyebrows shot up. “Your family ain’t a cult, is it?”

“Something like that,” Roxas muttered, uncomfortable with just how close it was. He didn’t know yet if he could trust these people, nice as they were being. He wanted to be more honest with his friends, but he didn’t want more friends he couldn’t trust, either.

“Is that why you know about magic and monsters and stuff?” Wendy asked.

Roxas blinked, and then his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” he replied, perplexed. “I haven’t seen most of the things you were talking about,” he told Wendy, “unicorns and gnomes and shapeshifters. You’re the one who brought it up.”

Stan and Wendy exchanged an incredulous look, and Stan ran a hand down his face.

“Look, kid,” he said, “most people don’t know weird stuff is real, alright? You talk about it, you’re gonna end up with attention you don’t want.”

Vanitas’s voice cut through Roxas’s confusion. _Not every World has magic, and sometimes creatures from one World are considered myth or fantasy on another._

_Oh._ Roxas had never been to a World that didn’t have magic. He wasn’t even sure which creatures he should or shouldn’t talk about.

“I don’t know what you mean by weird stuff,” Roxas admitted. He didn’t want Stan expecting him to act a certain way, and then get frustrated with him if it turned out that seagulls or fairies or whatever were weird here.

Wendy gestured broadly to the Shack. “Anything that happens in here is weird,” she said, grinning.

Mabel poked her head in from another room. “Grunkle Stan, Wendy, Grunkle Ford says it’s time to do the unicorn hair protection spell to keep evil triangle dream demons out!”

“Be right there, sweetie,” Stan replied, as he and Wendy both eyed Roxas, as if waiting for some kind of reaction. Roxas had no idea why – oh.

“Something she said was weird stuff?” Roxas asked.

“Try all of it,” Wendy drawled.

“Wait here with the kid and show him the ropes around the shop,” Stan told Wendy. “He can work shifts with you. I’ll be right back.” He followed Mabel into the other room.

“So how old are you, Roxas?” Wendy asked as she taught him how to use the cash register.

“Fifteen.”

“Nice.” Wendy grinned. “You can hang out with me and my friends, we’ll show you how to be a real teenager. I’m guessing that cult never let you have much fun, huh?”

“Nope,” Roxas agreed, shoulders hunched. How to be a real teenager, huh. That might be nice. Maybe he could stick around here for a while, if Axel and Riku didn’t show up.

“Want to talk about it?” Wendy offered.

It didn’t sound like she’d mind if he said no, so. “Not really.”

“Alright.” She accepted the refusal so casually that Roxas relaxed a little more.

“So what’s that protection spell for?” Roxas asked.

“Oh, there’s this evil triangle dude who likes to mess with people’s heads, so they’re doing a spell to keep him out of the Shack,” Wendy said. “I’ve never seen him, but Mabel says he’s caused a lot of problems before.”

Vanitas made a thoughtful sound in the back of Roxas’s head.

_What is it?_ Roxas asked, trying to divide his attention between learning the merchandise and the moody ghost in his head.

Vanitas shifted restlessly. _I think that’s the guy we need to summon,_ he said at last. _The triangle guy. His name’s Bill Cipher. Master took me here before, ages ago, and talked with him. He knows a lot of stuff, about lots of different Worlds._

_Wendy and Mabel both called him evil, though,_ Roxas pointed out, dubious. Vanitas shrugged.

_Good and evil are relative. What’s bad for them could be good for you, and vice versa. Just don’t summon him here in the Shack and don’t let any of these guys hear about it. Shouldn’t be a problem._

_What’s not a problem for us could be a problem for them,_ Roxas retorted.

_Sounds like they’re used to dealing with problems, though,_ Vanitas shot back. _Relax. You don’t need to get involved. Keyblade wielders aren’t supposed to stick their nose in local issues, anyway._

_Even if we cause it?_ Roxas asked sourly.

_If they’re putting up protection spells to keep Cipher out, he’s already an issue for them. We’re not causing anything. You want your own existence, right? And to save that girl?_

_Yeah…_

_Then stop bitching. These people can take care of themselves._

“Hello, Earth to Roxas?” Wendy’s voice cut in. Roxas blinked, shook his head, and looked up into concerned green eyes. “Everything cool?”

“Yeah,” Roxas assured her. “I guess I’m just tired.”

Wendy nodded. “Makes sense. Running away from home sounds pretty tiring. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Dipper and Ford.”

Wendy led him into the room Mabel and Stan had gone in, though of the two, only Mabel was still there. Roxas took in the other occupants, and jolted.

There was another man who looked exactly like Stan. His Nobody? His Heartless? Roxas didn’t sense anything like that, but –

_They’re probably brothers_ , Vanitas cut in harshly. _Rein it in, kid, don’t make them suspicious._

Roxas’s face went slack just in time, as the man and a small boy who was almost as eerily similar to Mabel looked up.

“Who’s this?” The man asked, eyebrows arching.

“This is Roxas,” Wendy said, patting him on the shoulder. “Roxas, this is Ford,” the man, “and Dipper,” the boy. “You should meet Soos too, I think he’s fixing the TV antenna again.”

Ford scrutinized Roxas a little more intently than he liked. It was easier to meet Dipper’s eyes, who only looked curious.

“He was lost in the woods,” Mabel said. “Were you gonna call home, Roxas?”

“I ran away,” Roxas said, the words coming easier this time. Strange, how those three words felt… liberating.

“Yeah, apparently he was living with some magic cult or something,” Wendy added. So apparently that was going to be common knowledge at the Mystery Shack, then.

Ford’s eyebrows climbed into his hairline. “Around here?”

Roxas didn’t like how sharp that sounded. Like he was being interrogated, or probed into.

“No,” he replied, more coolly than he probably should have. “I’ve… traveled a long way.”

“Is there a magic cult somewhere else in Oregon?” Dipper asked. Maybe a little too excited, but that was at least preferable to Ford’s suspicion.

“I bet it’s in California,” Mabel said, nodding sagely. “All the best cults are there.”

Oregon? California? Roxas must have looked as lost as he felt, because Wendy whistled lowly and said, “Man, they never even let you look at a map, huh?”

“Well – ” Roxas started, before Ford cut him off.

“Aha! I know why your presence feels so strange.” Roxas recoiled under the militant gleam in Ford’s eyes. “You’re from another dimension!”

_That’s what some people call other Worlds,_ Vanitas supplied at Roxas’s bemusement. Roxas grimaced as Wendy, Mabel, and Dipper all turned to stare at him.

“But how did you get here?” Ford demanded, standing and closing the distance between them. “I’ve dismantled the portal.”

Roxas decided the safest path was to say nothing. He wasn’t sure if he could trust Wendy, or the kids, but he definitely couldn’t trust Ford.

“Hey, back off a little,” Wendy said, stepping between Roxas and Ford before Ford could loom any closer. “Wherever he’s from, the guy’s clearly had a bad time.”

“Bill Cipher has agents everywhere in the multiverse.” Ford frowned disapprovingly at Wendy. “We can’t afford to let our guard down.”

“I’d never even heard of him before I came to this World,” Roxas muttered. It rankled a little to be suspected of something that had nothing to do with him.

Ford stiffened, and his frown turned more contemplative. “’This World’?” he repeated. “That’s uncommon terminology.”

“Not where I’m from,” Roxas said, shrugging to try and dispel his unease.

“Hmm.” Ford eyed him long enough that Roxas began to shift uncomfortably. “You say you ran from a cult?”

“Something like that,” Roxas said, choosing his words carefully. “It was more of an… organization. I figured out that they were using me, so I left.”

“Using you?” Ford repeated, eyes narrowing.

If Ford knew enough about other Worlds, maybe he’d recognize a Keyblade. But then, maybe that would be to Roxas’s advantage? After all, the Keyblade was meant to protect the Worlds. Even if it didn’t convince Ford, it might at least get him to back off. And then Roxas just needed to avoid him. Everyone else here seemed willing to be kind to him, for whatever reason. He could avoid one suspicious old man.

That decided, Roxas summoned Oathkeeper.

Wendy, Mabel, and Dipper all stared, wide-eyed. Ford gasped.

“A Keyblade! I’ve heard of those,” he said, stroking his chin, a fire lit in his eyes. “Many dimensions have some tale about Keyblade Masters. And it was said that they could travel freely between ‘Worlds.’ But I’d gotten the impression they were extinct.”

Roxas shrugged, trying to hide his relief that his ploy was working in nonchalance. “I don’t know much about it. The Organization never told me anything.” He dismissed Oathkeeper. Ford seemed disappointed.

“Perhaps you’ll allow me to study it?” he asked. The look in his eyes reminded Roxas of Vexen. Or DiZ.

Roxas fought back a shudder, and Wendy interjected before he could give the vehement refusal he wanted to.

“Dude, Roxas ran away from a whole other dimension, got lost in the woods, and now you want to put him under a microscope? No way. We’re heading back to my place, he’s gonna eat a good meal, and then he’s getting some rest. Come on, Roxas.”

Roxas was only too happy to follow Wendy out of the Mystery Shack. Food and sleep both sounded like a wonderful idea.

_Tamo?_ he called.

_Yes, Roxas?_ she replied. Nearby, but lurking in the Darkness, out of sight.

_If you sense Riku or Axel or anyone else from the Organization, could you let me know?_

_Of course._

_Thanks._

That concern settled comfortably on the edge of his mind, Roxas followed Wendy home. He could take it easy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, he’d find that journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be fair to Ford, he's 100% right to be suspicious.


	5. Resolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: The themes are gonna get a little darker from here on out, which is the reason I chose not to rate this story. Content-wise, I’m going to make an effort to keep it PG, but thematically, it probably leans more T-ish?
> 
> And yeah, this update is both heckie fast and heckie short, but I had a slow day at work and I think this scene works better as a chapter by itself.
> 
> Warnings: Too Much Exposition. Also, I’m playing fast and loose with KH lore, and it’s only going to get less-canon from here.

Dinner with Wendy’s family was loud and lively. Roxas couldn’t process much through his exhaustion, beyond watching with bemusement as the two smaller boys gleefully roughed each other up. It reminded him a little of how Sora and Riku had played when they were younger.

After dinner, Wendy’s fourteen-year-old brother Marcus led Roxas to his room, where a sleeping bag had been brought out for Roxas.

“It’s nothin’ fancy, but it’s comfortable,” Marcus said. “I use it every year when we go Christmas camping.”

“Thanks,” Roxas said. Of Wendy’s three brothers, Marcus seemed the most laid-back, which Roxas appreciated. He wasn’t sure if he’d want to share a room with Kevin and Gus.

All the trials of the day had been catching up to him and dragging him down all evening. The moment Roxas flopped onto the sleeping bag, he sank into sleep.

And just as abruptly, opened his eyes standing on the stained glass platform.

“Hey,” Vanitas said, lifting a hand in casual greeting. He was sitting on the edge, legs dangling off the side.

“Hi,” Roxas replied warily, glancing at the spot where the hole had been before. He knew Te Fiti had healed his memories, but –

Good, the hole was gone. But the colors seemed weird there. Roxas strode over to get a better look.

Where the hole and cracks had been, a jagged pie-slice of the platform stood out jarringly different from the soft blues and Destiny Island imagery. The dominant color was sunset orange, until it hit the edge of the platform, where it was bordered by thick black patterned with green vines and gold stars. The new design spread over the image of Sora’s foot, changed to look like the shoes Roxas wore in Twilight Town.

“What’s with this?” Roxas asked, though he didn’t expect a coherent answer.

“I have no idea,” Vanitas replied, shrugging. Roxas blinked at him, and Vanitas scowled. “I might know more than you, but I don’t know everything, kid.”

“I’m just surprised you gave me a straightforward answer,” Roxas said. Which reminded him… “We’re alone now, if you meant what you said about explaining.”

Vanitas made a sound that was half-groan, half-sigh. He levered himself to his feet, then set his hands on his hips as he stared out into the empty darkness around them.

Roxas waited.

At last, Vanitas turned, leveling a rueful twist of a smile at Roxas. Hooded golden eyes were anything but happy.

“Right. Okay. First lesson of the night, then.” He sauntered over, probably so he could loom over Roxas with the entirety of the six inch difference in their heights. “I don’t like handing out info for free. You’re not the only one with trust issues, kid.”

Roxas opened his mouth to retort, but Vanitas lifted one hand to silence him.

“But.” Vanitas’s eyes slide away, and he rubbed the back of his head. “I’ve had some time to consider all my options. You’re not much use to me if you don’t know anything – worse, you being so stupid is going to actively hurt our efforts. So I don’t mind filling in a few blanks, I guess, since no one else has bothered to teach you anything worthwhile.”

Roxas bit down on the sour remarks he wanted to make, as he finally put together why Vanitas acted like such a jerk. The insults, the abrasive attitude, the reluctance to cooperate – it was all a front. For what, he couldn’t quite tell, but there was definitely some measure of pride and vanity involved.

Roxas didn’t think Vanitas was the kind of person who would back down for someone else’s sake, so it must be for his own sake.

He had trust issues, _too_ , huh?

Roxas looked hard at Vanitas, and saw the same bitterness he’d been simmering in. The disappointment, pain, and fury of having been lied to and betrayed.

So Roxas left Vanitas’s pride alone, and said simply, “Okay. Thanks.”

Vanitas relaxed, and pushed roughly past the brief moment of honest vulnerability. “Alright. I’m not gonna get to all your stupid questions in one night, but we can get started. Lesson two: Nobodies.” He shrugged. “Master only mentioned them briefly, when he was teaching me about Heartless, but even the rudimentary stuff is more than you were ever told. So I’ll start with the most basic of the basics. Do you know the three components of a ‘person’?”

_Three_ components? “Heart, Body, and, uh… is it memory?”

“Close,” Vanitas said. “It’s Heart, Body, and Soul. The Heart is the metaphysical vessel that stores emotion, and is shaped from Light and Darkness; the Soul is the metaphysical vessel that stores memories, and the connections you form with other people; the Body is the physical vessel that stores the Heart and Soul. The Heart and Soul are so strongly intertwined with each other, lots of Worlds just use one word when they mean both. And most of the time, when Heartless grab a Heart, they get the Soul, too. But sometimes they don’t. That’s when a Nobody gets left behind – the Body and Soul, but no Heart.”

Oh. That more or less made sense. But… “The regular Nobodies don’t remember anything, though,” Roxas pointed out.

Vanitas shrugged. “I can only give you a personal theory on that one, Master never went into it. Maybe the shock of having the Heart ripped away damages the memories in the Soul. Even regular Nobodies can make _new_ memories, right? Heartless tend to form packs that operate on a sort of hive mind, so if some of them can’t make memories, they just share with the rest of the pack.”

“Xemnas’s Heartless was leading them, though,” Roxas said. “But if Xemnas has the Soul…”

Vanitas waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t try to apply general rules to that guy, his circumstances are different. Don’t ask,” he added firmly, as Roxas was about to do just that. Roxas scowled. “Anyway. You once asked how I knew my and Ventus’s body wasn’t a Nobody, right?”

“Yeah…” Roxas affirmed, reluctantly allowing Vanitas to change the topic.

“Well, it’s because I have our Soul,” Vanitas said. “Or most of it, anyway. Ventus has a piece of it left. Since the Heart and Soul are connected, you rip one in half, you rip both in half. Ventus got a bigger chunk of Heart, I got a bigger chunk of Soul. So I was  the one who remembered our past, but he was still able to make new memories, connect to new people. With both me and Ventus sleeping in Sora’s Heart, our body ended up an empty husk somewhere, probably. Maybe it’s even dead by now, I dunno.”

Roxas was only half-listening to the personal anecdote – something about that, Souls being ripped in half, made him think of Xion. Why?

Oh. If she was made from some of Sora’s memories, then… that must mean she’d been a piece of Sora’s Soul. No wonder she and Roxas had struggled with using the Keyblade at the same time – in essence, they were the same being. Parts of Sora’s Soul.

“Hey, about Xion…” Roxas began, then stopped and scowled again when Vanitas just looked blankly at him. “Don’t pull that with me anymore, you saw my memories, right? You know who she is!”

“Oh, that.” Vanitas grimaced. “I forget her name every time I hear it. Same deal with your memories. I’ve gone back and checked a few times, but I just forget again. You keep thinking about her, and I can hear that, so I know a little bit about her, but that’s all. That World Heart was able to fix your memories of her, but I doubt anyone else can hold her in their memories properly. Your buddy Axel couldn’t even remember her name, could he?”

Roxas froze. But now that Vanitas mentioned it… “Why did Axel remember anything at all about her, then?”

Vanitas shrugged. “No idea.”

Roxas grit his teeth, and wrenched away, pacing back and forth at a fevered pace. Had all his guesses been wrong, then? Was it even possible to save Xion? Infinite Worlds and infinite possibilities might exist, but did that apply for someone like Xion? If they truly were the same being, the same Soul, could they exist apart?

Roxas’s feet slowed, and he turned a frown on Vanitas, who’d been watching Roxas’s broody pacing  with raised eyebrows and a small smirk.

“How did your Master split you and Ventus?”

Vanitas blinked. “He stabbed us with his Keyblade. Why?”

Roxas’s hand clenched over his chest, the memory of pain as Sora drove the Dark Keyblade in pulsing through him. The abyss flickered with images as the scene played out around them before fading.

Vanitas tilted his head. “Oh, that. Yeah, that’s more or less what happened, except we were divided into Light and Darkness, not…” Vanitas fell silent, brow furrowing. “Hm.”

“What?” Roxas asked. He had a feeling they were both chasing the same idea, but he wanted to hear it from Vanitas, who knew more about how this stuff all worked.

“That Princess girl’s Heart was in Sora then, along with me and Ventus. And of course, Sora’s own Heart and Soul.” Vanitas tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Sora must have kept at least part of his Soul, since he still had his memories at that point. Same with the Princess, since she woke up with her memories intact. But her Heart and Soul were there getting stabbed with the Keyblade, too, I doubt they were totally undamaged. And if I ended up here with you, I wonder where Ventus ended up.”

“The last memory of Sora’s I have is him arriving at Castle Oblivion,” Roxas said slowly. “It’s really shaky, too. And I think it was after he went there that Xion – the girl only I can remember – was brought to the Organization. She said she had some of Sora’s memories inside her. So…”

“Yikes,” Vanitas snickered. “So his half a Soul got divided even further, huh?”

Roxas shook his head, staring down at his hands as he tried to nail down what was bothering him. “Towards the end, Xion, she said… she was making me weaker. And Sora, too. Because she was taking memories from us. She must have been taking in pieces of our Soul. She said she had to give what she’d taken back. But now I have all of Sora’s memories. So do I have Sora’s whole Soul?”

Vanitas shrugged. “Maybe? That’s something Cipher would be able to tell you, so you could ask him.”

“Right, I will,” Roxas said, then pushed on before he could be distracted from his train of thought. “But if that is the case… what’s happened to Sora?” All Roxas knew about Sora’s current condition was that he was in Twilight Town, and that DiZ, Riku, and Namine wanted to put Roxas back inside Sora so they could be a whole person again.

But now that Roxas thought about it, it was weird that Sora would sit back and let other people try and help him, without getting involved himself. Especially with Riku there. Sora had been moving around without Roxas before Castle Oblivion. If he wasn’t now, if he was missing his Soul, then… had Roxas and Xion _hurt_ Sora, somehow?

Roxas didn’t want to go back to Sora. He wanted to be his own person, an individual, separate from Sora. But he didn’t want Sora to disappear, either.

He didn’t want to replace Sora any more than he wanted Sora to replace him.

“If Sora really does only have his Heart now,” Roxas went on, “without his Body and Soul… what will happen to him?”

Vanitas stilled, then swiftly clamped his hands on Roxas’s shoulders, fingers digging in hard. Roxas’s eyes snapped up, taken hostage by vicious gold.

“Look, kid, I’ll spell this out for you, since you’re apparently too _dumb_ to figure it out for yourself,” he hissed through a rictus grin. “Creatures like you and me, we’re _monsters_ , okay? Our poor originals had bits and pieces of themselves _violently ripped out_ and given human shape. That ain’t exactly normal, you know? Us being here at all is a crime against _existence itself_. There’s no way for us to keep existing without hurting the people we used to be. And you even want to make a _third_ person out of what you stole from Sora! Maybe you can do it, but everything has a price. Keyblades aren’t magic wands you can wave to get whatever you want for free. You’re probably gonna have to choose between yourself and that girl, or Sora. Hell, you might even need to choose between saving the girl, or existing by yourself.”

Ice flooded Roxas’s veins even as his mouth went dry and acrid as the desert.

Vanitas let go, and straightened. “My advice,” he said breezily, rolling his shoulders, “is stop giving _any_ shits about Sora. It doesn’t matter what happened to him. It doesn’t matter what _will_ happen to him. Do you want your freedom or not?”

“That’s…” Roxas rasped, swallowed, tried again. “That’s not fair.”

Vanitas laughed, low and mocking and bitter. “Sure it is. You even know what _fair_ means? You getting everything you want, a happy ending for everyone where no one gets hurt, _that’s_ what’s not ‘fair.’ Time to open your eyes and see the world for what it really is, kid. Life sucks sometimes. But,” he went on in a malevolent purr, eyes a golden maelstrom, “better to have a life that sucks sometimes, than no life at all, right?”

Roxas’s fists clenched. He sucked in air through his nose, let it out in a gust.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. But…

“Right.”

He wasn’t going to disappear. He wasn’t going to let his existence be forgotten.

He’d try to save Xion. He’d try to save Sora.

But he wasn’t going to sacrifice himself. Not for them, not for anyone.

His fingers dug into his chest.

Never again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Short chapter, but there was too much tonal whiplash between this scene and what Roxas is going to be doing next (cute hijinks with Dipper and Mabel! …Probably?).
> 
> Coming up next, a Namine interlude.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated. Comments especially help keep me invested in this fic, so I know I’m not just doing it for me. 
> 
> Seriously, to those of you commenting, thank you so much.


	6. Interlude: Namine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to drop some story bombs.
> 
> Warnings: Memory shenanigans and convoluted lore, as ya do in the KH verse. Also, starting to get much more into why this is both Alternate Canon AND Alternate Universe.

Namine fell to her knees, the breath snatched from her lungs as Roxas tore himself away from the simulation, ripped free of the links she’d reestablished between him and Sora. Her fingernails bit deep into her shoulders as she knelt there and trembled through waves of agony, the magical backlash from shattering the chains made of memory having no other target but her.

Through the haze, she was dimly aware of being lifted into someone’s arms, and taken through a Dark portal back to the real world. By the time they emerged, she was able to muster a tremulous smile for Riku.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can stand, now.”

He nodded, and gently set her down. They were in DiZ’s underground lab, the corridor between the computer room and Sora’s resting place.

“Namine,” DiZ thundered, striding through the doorway. “How has this happened?”

Namine shook her head, unruffled by the show of temper. “I don’t know. Roxas should have already been too strongly linked to Sora to leave by himself. Right before he left, I thought I felt someone else helping him, but I don’t know who could have. No one should be that closely connected to him.”

“There’s something else bothering me, too,” Riku said. It was still so strange, hearing him speak with someone else’s voice. “What were those other monsters that came out of Roxas? They weren’t Heartless or Nobodies.”

Namine glanced at him, brow furrowing. “Other monsters…?”

DiZ turned a sharp look on Riku. “What did they look like?”

“Small. Blue-black. Sort of like Heartless, but they didn’t feel the same.”

“Hm.” DiZ tilted his head back towards the computer room. “Follow me.”

Sitting in front of the computer screens, DiZ pulled up an image on the screen. It had probably been taken in Hollow Bastion, before the Heartless had taken it over. A collection of strange-looking, not-quite-Heartless creatures were on the screen.

“This is from data I was able to salvage from the system in Hollow Bastion. Ten years ago, we had an infestation of these creatures,” DiZ said. “One of my guards told me they’d overheard a Keyblade wielder call them ‘Unversed.’” Namine gave a small jolt of surprise, though Riku didn’t react.

“The ones I fought were a little smaller, but I think those are the same type of creature,” Riku said, one hand on his chin.

“They came out of Roxas?” Namine asked, for clarification. Riku nodded. “I wonder why. He didn’t exist ten years ago, and I don’t think Sora ever saw creatures like that before.”

“You said it felt like someone was helping him, right?” Riku crossed his arms. “DiZ, do you know what the source of the Unversed was?”

“No,” DiZ said. “But given that they were only present for a brief period, have not been seen since, and there was at least one Keyblade wielder investigating the matter, I think it most likely that an individual or small group was the source.”

“What was the Keyblade wielder like?” Riku asked, a little too nonchalant. Namine carefully didn’t look at him.

“I do not know,” DiZ replied. “I never encountered the boy myself, and the Unversed damaged much of my surveillance system at the time. We’re lucky any of the data was salvageable. I will see what I can discover about the Unversed. Namine, you must see if Sora can be woken without Roxas. Ansem, track down Roxas and recover him.”

Namine and Riku both nodded. DiZ turned back to his computer, and Namine discreetly brushed her fingers against Riku’s sleeve. He followed her down the corridor to Sora’s resting place.

“What is it?” Riku asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me about the Keyblade wielder you’d met before.” He hadn’t been surprised to hear about another Keyblade wielder, but he had wanted to know what they were like – and he’d asked almost as if he wanted to know if it was someone he knew. A prior encounter with one would explain that.

Riku hesitated. Was it something he wanted to keep secret, then?

“Riku,” Namine said, and he flinched, “We need to figure out who’s connected to Roxas, who helped him leave. There must be a link to the Unversed that appeared ten years ago. DiZ might not be able to find anything useful. If you know about a Keyblade wielder who might have been involved with hunting down the source of the Unversed, please tell me. If it’s someone in Sora’s memories, I might be able to find them.”

Riku looked up at Sora’s pod. “…Alright. I was supposed to keep it secret, but for Sora…” He sighed. “Ten years ago, I met a man with a Keyblade. I didn’t quite understand what he was doing at the time, but I think he’s the one who gave me the power to wield one. He was tall, with brown hair. I think Sora saw him briefly, but didn’t talk to him like I did. I don’t remember too well, since I was only six at the time.”

“Thank you, Riku.” Namine smiled. She wished she could do more for him, but her power only let her work with Sora’s memories, and the memories of people connected to Sora. “I’ll see if I can find him.”

She closed her eyes, reaching out as she had a thousand times in the last year to touch Sora’s memory.

Nothing.

A boulder of trepidation plunged into her gut.

Namine tried again, and again, and again.

After a few minutes, she found that if she focused to the best of her ability, she could just barely brush the fragments of memory from Castle Oblivion in Sora’s Heart, but that he would no longer be able to truly remember.

Everything else was gone.

Namine’s legs gave out. She would have fallen to her knees again, had Riku not caught her by the elbow and helped to support her.

“What’s wrong?” Riku asked.

“They’re gone,” Namine whispered, eyes and throat burning. “All Sora’s memories. They’re all gone. I can’t reach them anymore. But I don’t understand, how could…”

Oh. Oh, _no_.

“I was using Roxas as a container and conduit for Sora’s memories,” she said with dawning horror, “since the end goal was to reintegrate him with Sora. He must still have them. But he… he _broke_ the link I was building between him and Sora.”

Riku’s grip became a vice on her arm. “What does that mean for Sora?”

“I don’t know,” Namine confessed. “But nothing good. Sora… probably can’t wake up like this. And even if he could, he wouldn’t remember anything.” She turned blurry eyes up to meet shadowed gold. “You have to bring Roxas back, Riku. Quickly. I don’t think Sora is… stable, in this condition. He might even…”

Disappear.

She couldn’t say it, but Riku understood anyway. He let her go, and without another word, whirled and vanished into the Darkness.

Namine returned to the computer room to report to DiZ. She explained the situation, and concluded with, “I think I should wake Donald and Goofy. Their memories are already restored, and the more people we have looking for Roxas, the better.”

“Very well,” DiZ said tightly, hands clenched on his knees. “My old friend Mickey has arrived in town; we can enlist his help, as well. I will make contact with him now. Hurry and wake Donald and Goofy.”

Namine nodded, and dashed back to the corridor where Donald and Goofy’s pods were stored. She reached for the pod controls, to begin the awakening process, then hesitated. Tentatively, she reached for their memories, one more time. Just to check.

Her power slammed up against a barrier she couldn’t overcome. It wasn’t like with Sora – their memories were definitely there. Namine just couldn’t access them anymore. But how could that be? It was almost as if –

– as if they were no longer connected to Sora. The bonds they’d formed with him were gone. But that should have been impossible! She couldn’t check their memories like this, but if the connections were gone, could they even still remember Sora?

Trepidation threatening to overcome her, Namine’s shaking fingers tapped across the pod controls. The machinery hissed, and the pod panels began to unfurl. Namine waited, hands clasped together in fervent hope. She hadn’t thought she’d be able to meet them again – DiZ had convinced her that she _shouldn’t_ –  but the dire circumstances required it.

It took the two of them a few minutes to wake fully, and then recover from their initial befuddlement, but when they seemed to have regained their clarity, Namine stepped forward.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Real sleepy,” Goofy said, yawning.

Donald rubbed his temples, blinking up at her blearily. “Who are you? Where are we?”

“My name is Namine,” she said. “And you’re in Twilight Town. What do you remember last?”

“Well, I – hm.” Goofy scratched his chin. “Gawrsh, I dunno. What were we doin’, Donald?”

“We were – we were…” Donald scowled. “We were… looking for the King, weren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Goofy said, grinning. Then his face fell. “I feel like I’m forgettin’ somethin’, though. Somethin’ important.”

“Me too,” Donald muttered. “We were looking for the King, and… uh… the Key?”

“Didn’t we find that?” Goofy asked, brow furrowed.

“Maybe?” Donald shook his head, one foot tapping out his frustration. “I don’t know.”

Namine went cold. They couldn’t remember him.

“You did find the boy with the Key,” she said gently. “Do you remember him?”

Donald and Goofy looked at her, then each other, then back at her. “No,” they said together.

_Oh, no. Sora, I’m so sorry, I failed you. Roxas… how could you?_

Namine swallowed past her anguish, and summoned as much of a smile as she could. “The King will be here soon,” she said. “Let’s go meet him.”

Donald and Goofy both brightened.

“Really?” Donald asked, eagerly following her as she led them through the empty computer lab up into the mansion.

“That’s great,” Goofy enthused.

The three of them waited in the parlor. It wasn’t long before DiZ returned, Mickey walking beside him, the two of them speaking low and urgent. Their conversation cut off as they walked in, and Mickey spotted Donald and Goofy.

“Your Majesty!” they cheered, throwing themselves at him.

“Oof! Haha, hi, guys,” Mickey said, returning the affectionate greeting, but more subdued. Then, he looked over at Namine. “You’re Namine?”

She nodded. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Your Majesty.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he replied, and seemed to mean it, despite his sad smile. “DiZ was tellin’ me about Sora and Roxas, and askin’ me about the Unversed.” From the distant way he said Sora’s name, he couldn’t remember, either.

“Do you know anything?” Namine asked, daring to hope.

Mickey nodded, mouth a grim line. “I sure do. It’s kind of a long story, though. Where’s Riku? Wasn’t he here?”

“He went to look for Roxas,” Namine said. “Should I call him back?”

“Please,” Mickey said. “I think he needs to hear this, too.”

Namine called the power to create a Dark portal – at least she hadn’t lost that ability. She wasn’t totally useless.

She hurried through the corridor, but found Riku more quickly than she’d expected to.

He stood there, in the middle of the darkness, a hand to his head. His hood was down, so Namine could see the confusion and anguish writ into the face he wore. Riku looked at her, brows knit together.

“It feels like my memories of Sora are fading,” he rasped. “Will I forget him?”

“Donald and Goofy and the King already have,” Namine said, and Riku gave a soft, helpless laugh.

“I see. Is there anything you can do, Namine? I don’t want to forget. I _can’t_.” Desperate eyes bored into her. “ _Please_.”

“I’ll try,” Namine said, because of course she would. How could she not? If she had any power left at all, please, let her have the power to help Riku not forget Sora.

She closed her eyes, and reached out.

It was a struggle. Misty, almost out of her grasp. Almost. But Riku still had at least a tentative connection to –

Not Sora. Roxas. They didn’t know each other well, and Namine wasn’t sure how either of them felt about the other, but there was a connection. And since Roxas held Sora’s memories, so long as Riku was connected to Roxas, he should be able to remember Sora.

Namine had tried to break down a connection like this before – the one between Sora and Kairi, on Marluxia’s orders. She’d only just begun trying to repair that connection when Roxas had broken it in his escape. But it shouldn’t be too much different, even if it was more indirect to strengthen the connection between Riku and Roxas in order to maintain Riku’s memories of Sora.

She shored it up as much as she could, then opened her eyes. Some of the tension had bled out of Riku’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Namine breathed a sigh of relief. So a connection with Roxas would allow others to remember Sora. Donald, Goofy, and Mickey had never met Roxas; she couldn’t do anything for them. But at least Riku, DiZ, and herself would be able to remember him. She wished she could speak with Axel, to see how he’d been affected.

“You don’t have a connection with Sora anymore,” Namine explained to Riku gently. “But you do have one with Roxas, and Roxas has Sora’s memories. So I did what I could to strengthen your connection with him. It might not be easy to fix the damage Roxas has caused, so when you see him again, it would help keep your memories of Sora stable if you could try and become closer with him.”

“I doubt he wants to be any closer to me,” Riku said with a rueful twist to his lips. “Especially not if I have to beat him up and drag him back to Twilight Town. But I’ll do what I can when I find him.” He turned to go.

“Wait.” Namine grabbed his sleeve. “Mickey says he knows about the Unversed, and wants to explain to all of us. We should hear what he has to say. The more we know about the person helping Roxas, the better. We should explain the situation to Donald and Goofy, too – they’re awake now.”

Riku nodded. He drew out his blindfold, and tied it around his eyes. In a hiss of Darkness, his form reverted to his own.

“I don’t mind showing that form to the King,” he said drolly, “but Donald and Goofy don’t need to know about it. They’d get the wrong idea.”

“Maybe so,” Namine agreed, hiding a smile behind her hand. “Let’s go back.”

 

***

 

Namine wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the ‘long story’ about the Unversed, but the more Mickey spoke, the more her chest ached and her eyes burned. It was so strange. She’d never met the people he spoke of – Terra, Aqua, Ven – but hearing their story filled her with sorrow and yearning she could neither understand nor explain. It just kept building, and building, and it was all she could do to contain it.

Fortunately, she’d learned in Castle Oblivion how to keep her body still and her face blank.

“DiZ showed me a picture of Roxas,” Mickey said, after finishing the tale. “And he looks just like Ven. I’m not sure why, but if there’s a connection between Roxas and Ven, he could be connected to Vanitas, too. He’s the one who made the Unversed.”

A connection between Roxas and Ven. And Namine knew she’d been born at the same time as Roxas, from the same circumstances. Perhaps that was why she felt for Ven and his friends so strongly.

“Very unfortunate,” DiZ sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What do you mean?” Riku asked.

“Oh, it’s just a metaphysical mess.” DiZ lowered his hand and shook his head. “There were not merely two, but three Hearts within Sora, which he unlocked in Hollow Bastion. One of which had already been split into two separate entities – which we must assume was still the case, as there is no evidence that Ventus and Vanitas properly reintegrated, is there, my friend?”

“No,” Mickey allowed glumly.

“Furthermore,” DiZ went on, “an additional two consciousnesses were given shape. Nobodies do not truly exist, and their will is but a farce, but they can be recepticles for Hearts, even fragments of Hearts. They actively seek such out, in a futile effort to exist.”

He turned a heavy gaze on Namine. “I have often wondered why it is that you are able to manipulate Sora’s memories and connections, but not Kairi’s.” Namine stiffened. That… why had she never wondered that, herself?

DiZ continued, “But it seemed clear to me that you were shaped from Kairi, and not Sora, so I did not think I had the means to pursue the mystery. I did not know there was anyone else who could have contributed to your form. But neither Sora nor Kairi has blonde hair, do they? And the Nobodies that I have seen do not deviate from their original forms so drastically.”

Namine’s eyes widened, her hand automatically lifting to touch her hair. “You think I’m part of Ven?”

“Perhaps,” DiZ said, scrutinizing her. “I think it most likely that Ventus’s Heart rests within Sora. I doubt there’s any other explanation for how Sora is still maintaining a corporeal form, lacking both his physical body and his memories. Kairi’s Light alone could not support him at such a distance, after such a long time. But Ventus’s memories are another matter; my experiments into the nature of the Heart proved that memory could be successfully separated from it. And memories can be very easily fragmented. It is possible you are an amalgamation of sorts, of Sora and Ventus’s memories.”

“Not Kairi’s?” Mickey asked, the only one who seemed quick on the uptake. Donald and Goofy were glassy-eyed and confused. Riku was harder to read, but Namine knew him well enough to recognize he was troubled. Perhaps by DiZ’s theorizing, but more likely, because he blamed himself for Sora’s current circumstances.

“Sora extracted his own Heart for Kairi’s sake,” DiZ said. “And Kairi’s own memory did not seem damaged in the aftermath, did it? She ought to have suffered at least some repercussions, from the vessel she currently resided in being unlocked with a Dark Keyblade. But if Sora, and perhaps Ventus, sought to protect her Heart and memory from damage, it would follow  that they, in turn, would suffer disproportionately. And if they were as closely connected as I suspect, producing two Nobodies that mixed them both – one in Sora’s body, one in Ventus’s – would have been a possible outcome.”

“Ventus’s body?” Mickey repeated, alarmed.

Namine wrung her hands together. “But… I’m…”

“Imprinted with the aftereffects of Sora’s and Ventus’s resolve to save Kairi,” DiZ said, “as Roxas was imprinted with their connection to one another, if my theory is sound. And… perhaps it is improper, to create such a hypothesis without input from the persons in question, but if Sora or Ventus, or both, viewed their gender identity differently than others may have assumed…”

“That’s possible,” Riku hedged.

“Then… am I Ventus’s Nobody?” Namine asked, aghast. “Or, am I…”

“You and Roxas likely both contain components from both Sora and Ventus,” DiZ replied. “Again, if my theory is sound. If Roxas is host to Vanitas, however, I  think it unlikely that he has much else from Ventus, which would leave the bulk of Ventus’s memory with you. And given that you have personally been transferring Sora’s memories to Roxas, I don’t know how much of Sora is left in you, now. You woke first in Castle Oblivion, did you not? The place where Ventus slept. You are not entirely Ventus’s Nobody, but that is likely the simplest way to describe you. _If_ my theory is sound.”

“Gosh,” Mickey gasped.

“Oh,” Namine squeaked.

Riku made an impatient sound. “So we know Roxas is connected to Vanitas, and Vanitas must have helped him escape, because the Unversed appeared. Anything else important right now? The sooner I find Roxas, the sooner Sora can wake up.”

“We’ll help you look,” Goofy volunteered. “I didn’t really follow any of that, but this Sora feller is in trouble, right? I don’t remember him, but if we were friends, I want to help.”

“Me, too,” Donald declared.

“Then you two go with Riku and help him find Roxas,” Mickey said. “I’ll stay here with DiZ and Namine. We’ll do what we can to keep Sora stable, and protect him from the Organization.”

Riku shifted, a little self-conscious. “Oh, uh… alright.”

Namine took a step towards him, then hesitated. She couldn’t even begin to sort out the confusing mess churning through her right now. She wanted help. Support. A friend. But she didn’t want to keep Riku here, either.

She wished Sora was awake. She’d already resigned herself to never meeting with him again, she didn’t deserve to after what she’d done to him, but…

She felt so lost, alone, confused. She couldn’t talk to DiZ – even if he’d been a halfway competent mentor figure, which he certainly wasn’t,  his stubbornly biased misconceptions about Nobodies would still rule him out. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy were nearly strangers. Riku was the only friend she had.

Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Riku stepped up to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll take care of him, right?”

“Of course,” Namine said, managing to smile. It was enough that he trusted her. It had to be, for now.

Riku nodded. “Take care of yourself, too,” he added quietly. She could feel a sad intensity from his gaze, even hidden by the blindfold. “I’d stay if I could. Sora’s not the only friend I want to help.”

Namine’s smile trembled, but somehow, she felt lighter. “Same here. Please, Riku, be careful.”

Riku smiled back, almost like he used to, back with Sora and Kairi on their island.

“I contacted Chip and Dale earlier,” Mickey said. “The Gummy Ship should be here by now.”

“Oh, goody.” Donald rubbed his hands together.

Namine was the only one who saw Riku’s smile freeze.

‘Do I have to?’ he mouthed at her forlornly.

Namine swallowed the snickers that almost escaped. ‘Good luck,’ she mouthed back.

Riku groaned, his feet dragging a little as he followed Donald and Goofy out of the mansion.

Namine considered her options. Sora probably wouldn’t need a lot of active help remaining stable, if Ven’s Heart was there. And she knew that, given a choice between Sora and Roxas, Organization XIII would pursue Roxas. Which meant, for the first time in her (admittedly short) memory, she had some time to herself, and some freedom to do what she wanted to do. In a limited capacity, sure, but that was more than she’d ever had before.

What… did she want, anyway?

Who even was she, really?

DiZ and Mickey were headed back towards the basement, and Namime followed after them. She fell in beside the King. “Your Majesty?”

“Yes, Namine?” he asked, smiling at her. A warm, friendly smile, that it felt natural to return in kind.

“Tell me more about Ven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Let Namine and Riku Be Friends 2k17 
> 
> We’re back to Roxas and Vanitas next time.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated.


	7. Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to keep this accessible for people unfamiliar with Gravity Falls while at the same time not overexplaining things for those who are familiar with it. As a result, there is probably either too much exposition or not enough. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> The update schedule may or may not go back to being spotty after this update. My writing habits are pretty inconsistent. 
> 
> Warnings: A very annoying triangle. Gravity Falls spoilers.

Roxas stood behind the Mystery Shack’s register, trying not to be too obvious listening in on Stan’s tour. Most of the displays in the Shack were clearly man-made, but the stories Stan came up with about them were fun to listen to. The old man’s theatrical narrative reminded Roxas of Demyx, or Luxord, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

_They’re all entertainers, aren’t they?_ Vanitas asked casually.

_Oh, yeah, that’s true._ Roxas had more or less gotten used to Vanitas’s presence in his head, making off-handed comments about whatever Roxas was thinking about. For some reason, it didn’t feel as intrusive as it had at first.

Maybe because he was learning how to listen in on Vanitas’s thoughts and feelings, too, and the overpowering pillar of his personality seemed to be isolation and loneliness. Another point of commonality between them. Though Vanitas definitely didn’t appreciate it when Roxas took notice.

They’d been in Gravity Falls for a few days now. Roxas had checked the Shack’s basement a few times, but he couldn’t find the journal. Ford worked down there a lot, too. Roxas wasn’t too bothered to have the plan foiled. He liked working at the Mystery Shack, hanging out with Wendy’s friends, and eating dinner with the Corduroys.

Vanitas was impatient, but not past the point of occasional muttered complaints. Tamo hadn’t sensed Axel or Riku in the nearby corridors of Darkness, and they didn’t exactly have a deadline. Roxas actually felt like he was learning a lot, too, from Vanitas’s nightly lessons on Keyblades, Light and Darkness, and other Worlds.

It was nice being able to take it easy for once, with no amnesia or ambiguous anxiety hanging over him, and a goal he’d chosen for himself, that he could approach with his own methods and pacing.

_You know, about some of those Organization guys –_ Vanitas abruptly went silent as Mabel careened into the room. It was easier for them to talk when Roxas was physically alone. It was just him in the shop today, since Wendy had something to do at her school.

“Roxas,” Mabel said in a faux-deep, dramatic voice, “you are formally invited to the greatest event of the summer – my and Dipper’s thirteenth birthday party!” She presented a piece of paper to him with a flourish. There was a hint of anxious desperation in her eyes that seemed incongruous on the perpetually-cheerful girl.  

Roxas took the invitation, glancing down at it briefly before smiling at Mabel. “Thanks. I’ll be there.”

Mabel brightened. “You will? You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Roxas said. Another week here should be fine. He’d find the journal, talk to Bill Cipher, then leave after the party. “Why, who can’t make it?”

Mabel walked around the counter and hoisted herself onto the tall stool, kicking her legs and hugging her backpack to her chest. “I just got back from seeing Candy and Grenda. Candy has music camp and Grenda’s going to Austria to visit her boyfriend,” she mumbled. “What kind of best friends miss your graduation into teenager-dom?”

“My best friend lied to me for months, then kept trying to kidnap me and drag me back after I ran away from the Organization,” Roxas offered, hoping the comparison would help cheer her up. It was weird for Mabel to be so down like this.

And sure enough, she gave a giggling snort. “Wow, you definitely win the ‘Most Terriblest Best Friend of the Year’ award,” she sniggered. Mabel hesitated, then went on, “Hey, did you ever go to school?”

“No,” Roxas said. Sora had, though, so he added, “I know some stuff about it, though. Why?”

“I’ve been hearing all day about how awful high school is going to be,” Mabel said. “Dipper and I have to go back home to California soon, too. I wish I could just stay in Gravity Falls. I don’t want summer to end.”

“Relatable,” Roxas acknowledged with a rueful smile. But Mabel didn’t just want to commiserate, she was probing for some advice, wasn’t she? Roxas didn’t think he was in the best position to give any, but it didn’t cost him anything to try, he supposed. “High school is, what, three or four years? And you have summers off. Just because you have to leave doesn’t mean you can never come back. Maybe the next few years will suck, but when you’re older you can do whatever you want, right?”

“That’s true, I guess.” Mabel didn’t seem much happier, but at least she wasn’t hunched over her backpack anymore. “Growing up is still kind of scary, though.”

“Better than the alternative,” Roxas said.

Mabel sniggered again, more from shock than anything else. “Wow, dark!” she crowed, playfully punching Roxas on the shoulder. “Nice to know I can always count on you for the ‘better than dying’ perspective.”

Roxas shrugged.

“Wanna hear about how I first met Waddles?” Mabel offered.

“…Sure?”

Roxas listened tolerantly as Mabel regaled him with stories from her summer, ringing up the customers who bought souvenirs when Stan finished his tour.

“ – and then Dipper kissed Mermando to give him reverse CPR, instead of just throwing him in the lake. There was water _right there_!” Mabel cackled, slapping her knee. She sighed. “I’m kind of jealous, though. Mermando was super dreamy.”

Something in Mabel’s backpack crackled with static. She blinked, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Oh, I wonder if Dipper is back somewhere with a signal again.”

_“Are you okay?”_ Dipper’s voice said.

_“I’m fine,”_ Ford’s voice came in.

_“Let’s get you out of there.”_

Mabel was covering her snickers with her hand. She put the walkie-talkie down on the counter and mouthed to Roxas, ‘Eavesdropping is hilarious!’

Roxas gave her an absent-minded thumbs-up.

_“Listen to me, Dipper,”_ Ford said, sounding more serious, _“this town is a magnet for things that are special. And that includes you and me. It brought both of us here for a purpose! Stay here with me, Dipper. Become my apprentice. Don't let anyone hold you – ”_ He started coughing.

Roxas glanced at Mabel, who had gone very still.

_“I’ll do it,”_ Dipper answered Ford. _“I’m gonna stay.”_

Mabel’s breath hitched, and she threw herself off the stool. Right into Roxas.

“Oof,” Roxas grunted.

“Oh.” Mabel swallowed, pulling herself upright and scrambling off him. Her eyes had filled with tears. “Sorry, Roxas, I – ”

She almost darted away, but Roxas caught her arm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Why had her mood plummeted again? She’d only just started to seem like her usual self again.

Mabel’s lower lip trembled, and then she burst into tears. Roxas stiffened as she buried her face against his chest.

“If Dipper stays here, he won’t come back to California with me,” she sobbed. “He’s going to leave me all alone! I thought he was the one person I could always count on to be there for me, b-b-but…”

Awkwardly, Roxas patted her back. He empathized more with Dipper, and it was uncomfortable to hear a position so close to Axel’s come out of Mabel’s mouth. His irritation built further with each whimper. He couldn’t bring himself to reassure her, and finally his temper wore thin enough that he bit out, “Isn’t he counting on you to be there for him, too? If you don’t want to lose him, just stay with him.”

Mabel’s sobs downgrading to watery hiccups. “But… Grunkle Ford doesn’t want _me_ as an apprentice…”

“So what?”

Mabel’s tears had subsided enough that she pulled back, eyes wide. But she was at least thinking about it, which soothed Roxas’s ruffled temper. “Mom and Dad might not let me…”

“Then they might not let Dipper, either.” Roxas shrugged. “At least talk to them. And Dipper, and Ford, too. You don’t need to figure it all out by yourself.”

Mabel stood, finally freeing Roxas to do the same. “Dipper and I could stay in Gravity Falls,” she whispered. “Go to school with Candy and Grenda, hang out with Wendy and Soos, live with Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford…” A wavering, fragile smile filled with hope spread across her face. “High school wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe Mom and Dad could even move here!”

"There, see,” Roxas huffed, “you don’t need to limit yourself to just what other people tell you to do. If you think about it, you have plenty of options.” Why did an emotionally-driven thirteen-year-old see sense faster than a Nobody in his twenties?

_Wow, have you got some baggage about that Axel guy,_ Vanitas snickered. Roxas ignored him.

Roxas yelped as Mabel threw her arms around him in a fierce hug.

“Thanks, Roxas,” she said, voice muffled against his shirt.

Roxas stared down at her, perplexed. He’d only said how he felt, and he’d even gotten mad at her, but she was still thanking him? His chest felt warm, and light, and strange. But it was nice. Confusing, but nice.

He patted her back again, and this time it didn’t feel awkward.

Dipper burst into the Shack. “Mabel! I just had the best day of my life!” Ford followed him in, but immediately headed down to the basement without even glancing at Roxas or Mabel. Dipper babbled on excitedly, “UFOs are real and there's one under the town and I saved Great Uncle Ford's life and, and...” He blinked at the scene before him, a red-eyed Mabel lifting her head off of Roxas’s chest. “What’s wrong?”

Mabel swiped at her eyes, and grinned. “Nothing, I’m fine! Roxas was just helping me figure some stuff out.” She picked up the walkie-talkie again. “Do you think Mom and Dad would let us both stay here? Or maybe even move here, if we asked?”

Dipper gaped. “Oh, you… heard, huh. Wait. Us _both_ stay?”

“Yeah!” Mabel trotted over to him and threw an arm over his shoulder. “I love Gravity Falls as much as you do, bro-bro! And if you want to do nerd stuff with Grunkle Ford, then I should support you, right? And I can go to school with Candy and Grenda, and see Wendy and Soos and Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford whenever I want. It’d be the best! Grunkle Ford is really smart and Grunkle Stan is the best conman ever, they’ll probably be able to convince Mom and Dad, right?”

Slowly, Dipper began to smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Really great.”

“The greatest!” Mabel enthused.

Roxas watched the twins, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Vanitas made gagging noises in the back of his mind.

_Oh, grow up,_ Roxas chided him. Something itched against his senses. Almost like there was a Dark portal nearby, that someone had forgotten to close all the way. But Tamo would have mentioned it if one had been opened anywhere in range.

This felt too close, too. As if it had come in with Dipper.

“Wanna do some party planning?” Mabel said, as the siblings headed for the attic stairs.

“Sure,” Dipper agreed.

As the two of them passed Roxas, his hand involuntarily slipped into Dipper’s backpack, extracting something small and spherical. It happened so quickly the kids didn’t even notice, and Roxas didn’t fully process it had happened at all until the two of them had already vanished upstairs.

_Did you do that?_ Roxas demanded of Vanitas, indignantly. Come to think of it, he’d completely forgotten how Vanitas had controlled his body to bring him to this World in the first place.

_I might only be half a Heart, but that’s still more Heart than you have,_ Vanitas said, and Roxas felt him shrug. _I can take control if I want to._

_Well, don’t_ , Roxas snarled. _This is_ my _body. Next time you want me to do something, just ask!_

_Relax,_ Vanitas huffed. _It’s not like I’m driving whenever I feel like it, you know? Just when you wouldn’t be able to act fast enough if I asked you to._

Roxas seethed. _If it’s an emergency,_ maybe _I’ll forgive you,_ he ground out. _Otherwise,_ don’t.

_Whatever_. Vanitas was too nonchalant for Roxas’s liking, but he didn’t think pushing the point would get him anything more concrete. _Check this thing out, though._

Roxas stared at the snowglobe-like object in his hand. Inside was a swirling portal fragment. Not Dark, but not Light, either. It felt more like… both, mixed together.

_Not very well,_ Vanitas scoffed, unimpressed. _This thing’s super unstable. Look, the glass is cracked. If this thing goes out of control, it’ll be a pain to close._

_How come?_ Roxas asked. Not that he had any intention of letting the portal loose, but he could just use his Keyblade to close it if he did, right?

_This thing’s not just unstable, it’s magically gigantic, even if the container is small. You’d either need a ton of power or a lot more skill to force it closed again,_ Vanitas explained. _The Keyblade doesn’t run on batteries, you know. It draws from its wielder. If you don’t have enough innate power to open or close something, the Keyblade can’t make up the difference for you. It’s an instrument, not a power source._

_Oh._ Roxas eyed the globe uncertainly. _What should I do with this, then?_

_Not give it back to a dumb kid who kept it in a messy backpack, that’s for sure._

Roxas supposed the safest thing to do would be to give it to Ford, but for starters, he neither liked nor trusted that guy. He didn’t want to explain taking it from Dipper’s bag, either.

Movement out of the corner of his eye pulled his mind away from the globe. Just outside was a round-faced, bespectacled man in a gray track suit, beckoning Roxas to come over. Roxas had never seen him before, but he did match the description of the time traveler Mabel had told him about earlier.

Curious, he tucked the globe into his pocket, and stepped outside the door.

A jarring, discordant magical presence swamped his senses. Roxas rocked back on his heels. Why hadn’t he sensed that before?

_Oh, that’s Cipher,_ Vanitas said, surprised. _He can possess people. I guess that protection spell they did on the Shack works._

“Yeah, it’s a real pain,” the time traveler – apparently possessed by Bill Cipher – said with a nasty laugh.

“You can hear him?” Roxas asked.

“Sure I can! I’m a master of the mindscape with powers beyond your comprehension! The all-seeing eye! Dream demon extraordinaire!” Bill declared cheerfully. He threw an arm around Roxas’s shoulders. “Whaddya say you and me take a walk, huh kid?”

Well, talking to Bill was the whole reason Vanitas had brought them here, after all. “Okay.”

“Great!” Bill steered Roxas into the woods, putting a good distance between them and the Mystery Shack. “So, what brings a spiffy young Keyblade wielder out to a boring backwoods World like Gravity Falls?”

“We wanted to talk to you, actually,” Roxas said, shrugging out from under Bill’s arm. “Vanitas said you might know how to help us.”

Bill hummed, lifting off his glasses to look Roxas up and down with eery, slit-pupiled yellow eyes. “You sure do need someone’s help!” he said, cackling. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more messed-up chimera, and I live in the Nightmare Realm! Nothing _but_ messes!”

“Chimera?” Roxas repeated, confused.

“You’ve got bits and pieces from all sorts of different places, what else would you call it?” Bill sneered. “What kind of help you lookin’ for, kids?”

_A self-sustainable, independent existence,_ Vanitas said.

“For me, him, _and_ Xion,” Roxas added firmly.

Bill gave a low whistle. “Wow. Tall order, kiddos. But could be I could help you! I won’t ask for much in exchange, just that cute little snowglobe you’ve got in your pocket!”

Vanitas snorted. _You mean the wildly unstable, barely contained mega portal in the globe,_ he said dryly. _Well, I don’t have any objections._

“What are you going to do with it?” Roxas asked, frowning.

“Does it matter?” Bill shot back. “Maybe you can find the info you need somewhere else, but you could spend years looking before you do. And you won’t find it cheaper than that.”

Roxas hesitated. He didn’t want to cause any problems for Mabel or Dipper or Wendy, but… as Vanitas had pointed out their first day here, they were used to dealing with Bill. Ford had traveled the multiverse, too. There were plenty of tools they could use to defend themselves at the Shack. And if the end result really was more than they could handle, Roxas could just stick around and help them clean up the mess. Agreeing to give Bill the portal wasn’t an agreement not to interfere afterwards.

“Information first,” Roxas said at last. “Then you can have the portal.”

“Boy, you sure know how to twist my angles,” Bill sighed nonsensically, “but yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll tell the two of you how to create your very own stable existence, and if you give me the rift, then I’ll fill you in on how to bring back Imaginary Numbers.” He held out a hand, grinning wide. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Roxas agreed.

They shook on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I’m sure there will be no terrible consequences for this whatsoever.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated.


	8. Breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of talking in this chapter. The downside of using lore I like is that it needs to be explained and set up so the characters’ goals and actions make sense, and the nature of the KH premise lends itself to being very lore-heavy. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ This should be the last huge info dump, though. Probably. I think. 
> 
> (No promises.)
> 
> Warnings: Chaos demon shenanigans. Weirdmageddon kicks off.

Roxas looked around, perplexed. He remembered shaking Bill Cipher’s hand, then a triangle-shaped spirit emerging from the time traveler’s body and diving into his.

For a brief, disoriented moment, he thought he was back in Twilight Town. But despite the visual similarities, this was somewhere different.

The landscape was black and white, for starters. The buildings clustered too closely together, and various objects were just floating in the air. Some of the debris was innocuous, skateboards and Struggle equipment and ice cream, but there were also broken signboards, shards of black glass, and bent railings – things clearly originating from The World That Never Was. And others from Destiny Island; coconuts, star-shaped fruit, wooden shards that might have once been a raft. Big chunks of rock, too, and… rusted Keyblades? Where were those from?

Train tracks lifted into the air, jutting out at strange angles, connecting the monochrome Twilight Town to something high in the sky. Roxas’s eyes followed them up, and widened.

Instead of a proper sky, upside down in the air was a familiar cityscape, but in much the same condition as Twilight Town. Monochrome, with the buildings shoved too close together. He could see the upside-down Castle, even larger than it was in real life, its highest spire extending down, almost touching Twilight Town. If Roxas was gauging the landscape correctly, it was right over the old mansion.

“Boy, I’ve seen some cluttered minds in my time,” a loud, nasal, too-cheerful voice said right in Roxas’s ear, “but this is the best mess I’ve ever seen! Some high-quality chaos you’ve got up here, kid!”

Roxas jerked away, turning to scowl at the floating golden triangle. This had to be Bill Cipher’s true form. “Where is this?” he demanded. “My mind doesn’t look like this. It’s just… a stained glass pillar in a black void.”

Bill tsked, shaking a small black finger at him. “That’s not your mind, kid! The mind is a collection of memories, thoughts, experiences, connections – if you don’t have the composure or experience to keep it blank, it’s going to be full of junk!”

“Oh.” Roxas eyed Bill dubiously. “So what are you doing in my mind?”

“We have a deal, don’t we?” Bill’s eye curved with an unseen smile. “Can’t go imparting dangerous knowledge like that just standing around in the woods! Communicating in the mindscape is easier for me, too.”

“Uh-huh.” Roxas crossed his arms. “Okay. Impart away.”

“For a guy whose mindscape looks like some of my parties, you sure like to get right down to business,” Bill huffed. “Fine, fine. Self-sustainable, independent existence for you and Shadow.”

“And Xion,” Roxas said – then jumped as salt-soaked wind howled through the mindscape, before the air settled to stagnant nostalgia once more.

“Right,” Bill said, snapping his fingers. “After you give me the portal. You’re gonna need to keep reminding me of that one, kid, even an avatar of madness like myself can’t keep a firm grasp on something that only exists in one person’s head.”

“Okay…”

Bill sat himself on a piece of floating debris, crossing his legs and summoning a cup of steaming purple liquid from thin air. He sipped from it with his eye, then stared down at Roxas.

“Down to business, then! I’ll tackle you first, since you’re the easiest. You’ve already got a body, and enough soul to feed our Reptilian Overlords for years, so that’s the two hard parts out of the way already! All you need is to keep growing that little baby Heart of yours. And get Shadow out before he does any permanent damage to it, of course.”

Roxas stiffened, shoulders hunching in as he grasped at his chest. “I… have a Heart?” he whispered. “That’s not right. I mean, I’m a Nobody. We don’t have Hearts. That’s the _definition_ of being a Nobody!”

Bill cackled. “You’ve really eaten that up hook, line, and sinker, haven’t you?” He waved a condescendingly dismissive hand. “Sure, sure, that’s how you guys start out. If it’s white and wriggly, it’s an empty vessel. But what do you think a Heart even is? Your mind, Soul, whatever you want to call it, that’s the order of the human experience. It has rules, patterns, logic, all that boring stuff. But the Heart is pure chaos! Reason and rationality don’t apply, and like all chaotic energy, it can just poof! Show up! All you gotta do is put the right food out!”

Roxas leaned against the black and white ice cream stand, head reeling. “Just… show up…? What…” He shook his head, trying to grasp that world-shattering revelation. “What… ‘right food’?”

Bill gestured around the mindscape. “Soul food, of course! Meet people, form opinions, have unique individual experiences. The more you do that, the more strongly you’ll feel about it, the more Heart you’ll have.”

Roxas laughed, even as bitter tears spilled down his cheeks and he sank to the ground. What else could he do? Either Xemnas was wrong, or he’d been playing them all for fools. He buried his face in his hands, laughing and laughing and laughing, so hard his stomach clenched, his lungs burned, his Heart ached.

His hysterical laughter eventually subsided to wheezing gurgles, and finally died altogether. Roxas scrubbed at his face, and looked up at Bill, who’d leaned one side on his fist, floating in midair as his eye sipped worms from a martini glass.

“Beautiful breakdown, kid,” Bill said, dismissing the glass to give him a slow clap. “I could watch humans lose their minds all day. Okay! Moving on. Shadow.”

“Right,” Roxas sighed. “Vanitas. Right.” He looked around, half-expecting to see his mental roommate saunter up. “Where is he, anyway?”

“This is your mind, not his,” Bill drawled. “He can’t just waltz in here, any more than I could. I offered to give him a hand,” Bill started juggling severed hands, “but I think he was worried about leaving your body unconscious on the ground, so he’s piloting while I convey the info you wanted.”

Roxas hissed at that. Not half an hour after telling Vanitas that it was _his_ body…!

“Relax, kid.” Bill flicked Roxas on the forehead. “Shadow has a healthy sense of pragmatism and self-interest, he’s not gonna go overboard with your body when he still needs you willing to work with him. I told him if you two want to be independent from each other again, he needs to keep the bleed over to a minimum.”

Roxas resisted the urge to deliver the rant that would be wasted without Vanitas present to hear it, and instead sullenly asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you want me to boil a vastly complex metaphysical phenomen down to a form your weak, mushy, broken little human brain can understand… Order and chaos are as much a part of the universal balance as Light and Darkness,” Bill said. “Obviously, Light is the order and Darkness is the chaos. So Light can be stable by itself, but Darkness can’t. Even a dashing dream demon like myself, the very epitome of chaos and antithesis of order, has a teeny tiny atom of Light in me, so I can at least exist in the Nightmare Realm without resorting to parasitism and spilling my magical guts every time I sneeze.

“Where there’s tangible Darkness without any Light to stabilize it, there’s a mess – a byproduct. That’s why there ain’t a Light-aligned equivalent of the Heartless, capiche? Shadow is pure Darkness, and his byproduct are those pesky Unversed. And because Darkness is messy, it’s spilling all over everything he touches. In this case, you. That goes on too long, your Heart will be destabilized, too, and he can’t be cleanly extracted from your Heart if his Heart is unstable. Let alone the problems you’ll have if both of you are off-kilter! The top priority for both of you has to be stabilizing him.”

Roxas was glad Vanitas had been teaching him about Light and Darkness lately, because he’d have a lot more trouble following Bill’s explanation otherwise. Bill’s rapid-fire speech patterns were a little difficult to follow, but he more or less got the idea.

“Alright,” he agreed slowly. “How?”

“You need to find someone with a lot of power over Light and Darkness, who knows how to use it,” Bill told him. “I’m not talking deities, or Keyblade Masters, or anyone else who needs a coherent sense of identity to function, either. They don’t just need to know how to _use_ power, but how to _create_ it.”

Roxas frowned, thinking hard. Then it dawned on him. “The Heart of a World,” he said.

“Bingo!” Bill snapped his fingers. “Glad you’re quick on the uptake, kid. Now, Worlds tend to lean more towards being Light and orderly, _or_ Dark and chaotic. Just like anybody else, at least in that regard. But Shadow doesn’t want a whole personality rewrite, and that’s what’d happen if you shove too much Light into him. You need to find a World Dark enough that it’ll accept the Darkness in him as something natural, but Light enough that it’s capable of creating what he needs. Balanced Worlds don’t often have easily accessible Hearts, either. Plus you’re working on a tight timetable – every time you make an Unversed with Shadow’s Heart, you destabilize both of you even more, and you’re already pretty close to your limit.”

Roxas folded his arms around his knees. He’d have to ask Vanitas for tips on how to prevent himself from making Unversed. Every time it had happened so far, he hadn’t had any control over the process at all.

“Get a World Heart to help stabilize Vanitas’s Heart with Light, got it,” Roxas muttered. “Then what?”

“Find someone who can make a physical body for him.” Bill shrugged. “Should be pretty easy, there’s tons of methods you could work with. Science, magic, a mix of the two; take your pick. Getting his Heart out of yours without damaging either, that’ll be the trickiest part. The only thing that can work with Hearts that way is a Keyblade, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed, you can’t just go stabbing yourself willy-nilly. You need an expert.”

“A Master,” Roxas said.

“Yep! And those are in short order these days. That’s been good news for me, haven’t had any busybodies poking their nose into my business for decades! But sucks for you,” Bill crowed. “All the knowledge in the multiverse wouldn’t make what you want any easier to achieve, especially not on the tight schedule you’re stuck with! And that’s not even getting into what you have to do to make Imaginary Number real! Can’t wait to see your face when I go into that!”

Bill rolled around in the air, wheezing with laughter.

Roxas surged to his feet, fists clenched. He didn’t care if Bill thought it was possible or not, but he did _not_ like being laughed at.

Just as he was about to summon Oathkeeper and Oblivion, Bill stilled, and stared down at Roxas, glowing.

“First, though,” the triangle demon said softly. “I expect my payment.”

With that, he vanished. Roxas couldn’t sense Bill’s presence in his mind anymore.

“Great,” Roxas grumbled, looking around. “So how do I get out of here?”

Abruptly, the world grayed out around him, then went black. Roxas’s body dropped roughly onto a hard, smooth surface, glowing ocean-blue and sunset-orange in the darkness.

The stained glass pillar. His… Heart.

Roxas hoisted himself to his feet, then turned in a slow circle. He was alone.

“Hello?” he called out uncertainly. “Vanitas, where are you?”

_“Hey! Welcome back,”_ Vanitas’s voice reverberated all around him. Something like a window opened up in the empty abyss, giving Roxas a high view of the forest, legs stretched out in front of him. He could feel arms tucked behind his head, vague and distant, though his own were at his side.

The window showed him what Vanitas was seeing, Roxas realized. And he could feel what Vanitas was feeling. He even knew exactly where Vanitas was – up in a tree, the unconscious time traveler on the ground beneath it. In Roxas’s body.

Vanitas clearly felt Roxas’s pulse of fury, because he quickly said, _“Woah, chill, kid, don’t worry. We can switch back, easy.”_

Roxas’s fists clenched, anger darkening. “Would it kill you to listen to me for a change? This. Is. _My._ Body. I don’t care if you think you’re helping me or not. I don’t care if it’s easy to switch back. I don’t _care_ if I’m too slow for you, or if I’m in danger, or whatever other _excuse_ you give – ”

With each biting snarl, Vanitas had curled inwards, fingers scrabbling at his chest. _“Fine. Fine! Just_ stop that, _you stupid brat! You’re going to make an Unversed!”_

Roxas hissed, rolling back on his heels. But he could feel something oily and ugly roiling in the darkness around him, so he did his best to reel in his temper. The world went white around him, and by the time he’d caught his breath, he was back in control of his body.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Roxas said firmly, temper still burning too hot to communicate mentally.

_I said_ fine _already!_ Vanitas snapped back, a vibrating ball of sulky petulance in the back of Roxas’s mind.

Roxas snorted, and leapt nimbly out of the tree. The time traveler was clambering awkwardly to his feet, and he looked up with Bill’s eyes, a razor-edged grin plastered to his face.

“You two are _adorable,_ ” he snickered. Then he held out his hand. “Portal me, baby.”

Roxas extracted the globe from his pocket. “And then you’ll tell me how to save Xion?” he pressed.

“Sure!” Bill said cheerfully. “I’m happy to pour fuel on the fire of your inevitable trainwreck.”

Roxas gave Bill the coldest glare in his arsenal. “Don’t underestimate me.” He handed Bill the cracked globe.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bill sing-songed, and threw the portal to the ground, cackling maniacally as it shattered.

_Probably should have seen that coming,_ Roxas groaned internally. Bill’s triangle form emerged from the time  traveler’s body, floating high up into the sky as a jagged, chaotic rift tore open above him.

_What else did you think he was going to do with it?_ Vanitas sneered. Flesh and muscle and a magical exoskeleton generated around Bill, giving him a three-dimensional body of his own. The dream demon dove towards the town.

With few other options, Roxas ran after him. One way or another, he would make sure Bill kept his end of the deal, and told him how to bring back Xion.

 

***

 

Roxas reached the town just as a giant pyramid materialized to hover in the sky. He dodged colorful bubbles that radiated a disgustingly slimy magical presence, and smacked a flying eye monster away with Oathkeeper.

There were dozens of the things flying around the town, turning people to stone and carrying them away towards the pyramid. Roxas saw one diving for Manly Dan, Marcus, Kevin, and Gus.

“Stay away from them!” he burst out, whipping Oathkeeper upwards as fast as he could. “ _Thundaga!_ ”

Lightning fried the monster aiming at the Corduroys, and scattered the others nearby. Roxas took the opportunity to jog over to the red-headed family, looking them over frantically. They were scared, and gaping at him, but no one was hurt.

“How did you do that?” Marcus asked, awed.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Roxas said. “You guys need to get out of here.” Would the protection spell on the Shack work for everything from Bill’s World, or just Bill himself? Either way, it was better than nothing. “Head for the Mystery Shack. If I see Wendy, I’ll tell her to meet you there, okay?”

“You can’t stay out here by yourself!” Dan drew himself up. “It ain’t manly to leave a kid behind!”

Roxas’s eyes widened, and then he smiled. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “For caring. But I can protect myself.” He brandished Oathkeeper. “I’ll stay safe. I promise. So you guys have to, too, okay?”

Dan’s face twisted with conflicted concern. He glanced down at Kevin and Gus, clinging to his legs, and over at Marcus, anxiously watching the sky.

“You break that promise, I’ll break you in half!” Dan ground out, then lifted his two younger sons in one arm, and used his free hand to grab hold of Marcus. He took off into the forest, in the direction of the Mystery Shack.

Roxas wished he could spare the time to escort them to safety, but he didn’t want to let Bill out of his sight.

Granted, Bill wasn’t exactly hard to spot right now. He’d grown to monstrous size, and was flanked by similarly gigantic grotesqueries.

As Roxas approached, the bell of a nearby tower began to clammer wildly, and a beam of energy shot out from somewhere on top, straight through Bill’s hat. The hole regenerated rapidly, and Bill shot a burst of power back at his attacker, before he and his monster gang closed in on the tower.

Roxas extended his senses, trying to get a grasp on the situation before he was in range, so he could act right away once he was.

There were two people at the top of the tower. It only took a moment for Roxas to recognize Dipper and Ford. He didn’t care what happened to Ford, but he wasn’t about to let Bill hurt Dipper. Roxas darted into a nearby building, hurrying to the roof so he could approach from a better angle.

He emerged just in time to watch Ford get turned into gold and used as a backscratcher – and okay, that was pretty bad, maybe should have at least tried to save Ford, even if he was a jerk –

Dipper leapt into view, and Bill closed in on him.

Roxas was still out of range. “Bill!” he hollered. “Back off!” If he was heard, he was ignored. He ran as fast as he could, jumping between buildings when he could and gliding when he couldn’t, and ugh, why was gliding so _slow_ –

“Go ahead, Pine Tree, show me what you've got!” Bill taunted, spoiling for a fight.

Dipper was frantically flipping through a book – the journal Roxas had never been able to find? “I, um, I, um – ”

“I UM I. Do it, kid. Do some _brilliant_ thing that takes me down right now. What d’ya got, Pine Tree, everyone's waiting! DO IT.”

In range, finally! Roxas whipped Oathkeeper foreward, casting his best Firaga right at Bill’s eye.

The demon reared back, hands over his eye, yowling. “Augh! Why would you _do_ that!”

Roxas landed in the rubble of the damaged tower, skidding to a halt in front of Dipper. The younger boy was bruised, but not badly injured. A quick twirl of Oathkeeper as he cast a Cure spell took care of that.

“Roxas! What are you doing here?” Dipper gasped.

“Better question,” Bill growled, looming large over them both again. His eye was still smoky and red. “Why pick a fight with me, kid? We had a deal, didn’t we?”

Dipper recoiled, staring at Roxas with hurt and horror. Roxas’s chest clenched, and he turned, as much to avoid that look on Dipper’s face as to glare at the demon.

“I never said I wouldn’t try to stop you,” Roxas said. “And you left before you told me how to save Xion. You’re the one who’s breaking the deal.”

Bill snapped his fingers. “That’s right! That’s what I was forgetting. I told you to remind me, didn’t I? No need to get all cranky and start throwing fireballs at your pal Bill. Throw ‘em at these things instead!” Bill levitated three journals off the roof and with another snap of his fingers, burnt them to ash.

“No! The journals!” Futilely, Dipper reached out for them.

“Come on, guys, VIP party at the Fearamid! And you’re invited, Twin Keys,” Bill declared, directing his last comment at Roxas. “I’ll fill you in on how to save Imaginary Number.”

Roxas took a step forward, and Dipper grabbed his wrist. The smaller boy’s palm was sweaty, his skinny arms trembling with fear and exertion.

“What are you doing?” Dipper demanded, voice cracking. “You’re not… you wouldn’t go with him, would you? Look what he’s done to Grunkle Ford – to all of Gravity Falls! He’s evil! A monster! You can’t trust him!”

Roxas couldn’t bring himself to look at Dipper. Why… was that?

Bill laughed again. “Don’t waste your breath, Pine Tree! Twin Keys doesn’t have _that_ much of a Heart yet. He doesn’t have it in him to care about the big picture! His little baby feelings can barely stretch to the handful of people he’s had positive interactions with. He’s still way more ‘puppet’ than ‘real boy’!”

Roxas felt dizzy. He could only care about people he’d interacted with? That couldn’t really be true, could it?

But… was it really that bad if it was? Or could he just not recognize good from bad at all?

“Roxas?” Dipper’s grip tightened into a painful vice. “What is he talking about?”

Pressure built up inside his chest. He was going to choke, or suffocate, or vomit. Maybe all three.

_Kid, be careful, you’re going to make an Unversed!_ Vanitas barked.

“Roxas, please,” Dipper begged.

“Tick-tock, Twin Keys!” Bill held out his hand.

He had to get away. Had to stop this terrible, churning feeling before it turned into an Unversed. Had to get rid of this jumbled up mess in his head. Had to, had to, had to…

Roxas wrenched his wrist out of Dipper’s grasp, created a Dark portal, and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated.


	9. As Partners, As Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you needed any more evidence that this fic is 100% self-indulgent, this chapter will probably do the trick.
> 
> Warnings: Spoilers for Digimon Tri. Also some very juvenile violence and lots of swearing.

Roxas staggered out of the portal and fell to his knees on Te Fiti’s shore, nails biting into his shoulders as his body shook. He gulped air down like water, hoping against hope that the sickly pressure in his chest would subside without creating an Unversed.

Vanitas was a silent but palpable presence in the back of his mind, his irritation and anxiety inconsequential pinpricks behind the knowledge that Roxas wasn’t alone.

_Roxas?_

He looked up as Tamo emerged from a Dark portal in front of him. He couldn’t answer her, or even move; he couldn’t afford to divert any energy from his efforts to control the tidal wave of negative emotion threatening to overcome him.

He couldn’t get Dipper’s face out of his mind. That look of hurt and horror. Of _betrayal._

Tamo stepped in close, bumping her forehead against his.

_I am here with you,_ was all she said.

Roxas clung to her comforting presence and Vanitas’s inescapable one for all he was worth.

Some time later – minutes? Hours? An eternity? – the terrible roiling inside him began to quiet. His chest felt sore and raw, but the terrible feeling passed without birthing an Unversed.

Roxas slumped, panting.

“Are you alright?”

Roxas jerked in surprise – the voice was familiar, but he’d never heard it vocalized. He lifted his head to gape at Tamo.

Her presence still felt like a Nobody’s, but her body no longer looked like his Samurai, or bore the Nobody sigil anywhere that he could see. She wasn’t human; mostly feline in appearance, but bipedal, just over one foot tall. She was white-furred, with purple tufts tipping her overlarge ears, purple stripes lining her tail, another tuft of purple at the tip. She wore large, three-clawed purple gloves over her hand-paws, striped in white. She had large blue eyes, that looked completely her own now, despite the similarity in color to Roxas’s.

“Roxas?” Tamo said, forehead wrinkling with concern.

Roxas blinked, and took a deep, stabilizing breath. “I’m… feeling better. Thanks, Tamo. How about you?”

Tamo stilled, ears twisting back. “I…” She stared down at her paws. “I remember,” she breathed. “I’m… Tailmon.”

“Tailmon?” Roxas repeated.

She glanced at him, and offered him a small smile. “You can still call me Tamo, if you want. I like it.” Her mouth slackened into something lost and confused. “What happened…? There was a virus, and we were all infected, and then… they must have done the reset, but… I don’t understand why I ended up like this. The Heartless never came to our World.”

_That wouldn’t matter. If a Heart is separated from its Soul and Body, it’s possible for a Nobody to be born,_ Vanitas offered, and Roxas conveyed that information to Tamo, along with a basic explanation of what Heart, Soul, and Body each were.

Tamo was quiet for a long minute. Then she gave a soft, helpless laugh. “I see,” she whispered. She told Roxas, “I’m a Digimon. We’re made of data, but we’re alive. There was a… virus, an infection, that impacted the whole Digital World. The only way to cure it was by resetting everything – erasing all the memories, all the experiences, all the history, of every aspect of the Digital World, and starting over. But our Hearts would still be our own. We would still be us. So the Hearts must have been carried over, into new, uninfected copies of our Bodies and Souls, and the old data should all have been deleted. But my friends and I… we were all in a portal, very close to the human world. Perhaps, then, when the reset occurred, and our Hearts were transferred to the new Digital World… rather than being deleted, the old data from our Bodies and Souls became Nobodies. Or…”

Her ears drooped. “Or mine did, at least. I wonder what happened to the others. And Hikari,” she added, head jerking up with realization. “Is she alright? Did the reset save her, save everyone? How long have I been a Nobody…?”

Roxas sat back on his heels. All that about data and digital worlds and memories being tampered with  stirred up fear, and fury, and pain, and he couldn’t afford to linger on those feelings too long right now.

“Sounds like you had a hard time,” he said, frustrated his own limitations kept him at an emotional distance. Tamo was a friend, she’d helped him so much; he wished he could help her, too.

Tamo looked up at him. “You’ve had a hard time yourself, lately,” she replied, and Roxas was swamped by a wave of gratitude and relief.

She stared out over the ocean. “I don’t think I would have remembered at all, if not for you.” Tamo turned a warm smile shadowed by melancholy eyes his way. “Thank you, Roxas.”

Roxas shook his head. “You’ve done a lot to help me, too.” Leading him to question all that he thought he knew about Nobodies, being a loyal and dependable constant in the past week, and most of all, being a friend when he really needed one.

“You don’t have to,” Roxas said slowly, “but… I’d like it if you stayed with me.” If she had someone to protect, friends back home, he didn’t think she’d choose to stay, but he had to at least tell her how much she meant to him, in the only way he knew how.

Tamo looked out over the water again, deep in thought. At last, she said, “I don’t feel the connection to Hikari that I used to. I think I’ve been a Nobody for a long time, even if I was just a Dusk before I met you. So it’s been at least a year, maybe more. It… feels like more. Hikari… probably doesn’t need me. Not this me, anyway. I’m sure my Heart is by her side. She already has a partner protecting her.” She smiled at Roxas again. “I’d like to do the same for you. I’ll gladly stay with you, Roxas.”

A lump rose in Roxas’s throat, eyes burning. It was painful, but he’d never been happier.

_So what now?_ Vanitas asked, having clearly noticed that Roxas’s mood had stabilized, and it was safe to be snide again. _You ran off before you got the rest of what Cipher owes you. And you wanted to ask him about Sora’s Soul, too, didn’t you?_

Roxas  grimaced, looking up at the mountains made by Te Fiti’s sleeping body. He hadn’t consciously chosen to come here, but it was the only safe place he knew.

“I couldn’t go with him,” Roxas said. “Not with Dipper looking at me like that. And what Bill said, that I can’t… care about the big picture. That…” Scared me, he couldn’t bring himself to say.

“Who are you talking to?” Tamo asked.

Roxas blinked. He’d gotten so used to communicating with both of them, mind-to-mind, that he’d never realized they couldn’t communicate with each other that way. “Vanitas,” he told her. “I’m sort of sharing my body with him, but we both want to be able to separate. Vanitas brought me to Gravity Falls because he knew Bill would be able to tell us how.”

Vanitas gave a dissatisfied grunt. _What did he say to you, anyway? All he told me was to try not to let you make any more Unversed, and that he’d give you all the info while I held down the fort._

Roxas relayed the information he’d gotten from Bill, out loud and explaining some concepts as needed so that Tamo could be on the same page with them.

_I’m plenty stable,_ Vanitas complained when he was done. _I don’t want any Light in me._

“But it sounded like if you don’t get at least a little, it’ll be harder to separate us, and you’ll keep making Unversed,” Roxas retorted. “I don’t know how it feels to you, but I don’t think that’s such a steep price to pay if it means never having to go through that again.”

Vanitas didn’t reply, but Roxas could feel his frustration. Creating Unversed undoubtedly hurt Vanitas more than it hurt him, and Vanitas hated putting his negative emotions on very prominent display even more than Roxas did. Not to mention that Vanitas undoubtedly suffered more repercussions from creating Unversed. Roxas might have supplied the feelings that shaped them, and been the conduit towards their physical creation, but Vanitas’s Darkness was both the catalyst that created them, and their source of power. At least Roxas was done with the things once they were out of him; he suspected that Vanitas could still feel them even after they’d been created.

Of course he was as frightened about gaining some Light as Roxas was about growing a Heart. Darkness was who and what and everything Vanitas was, just as Roxas’s identity was so wholly tied to Nothingness and Nobodies.

But to exist on their own, wasn’t it worth it?

Because of the link between them, Roxas knew exactly what it was about the Light that Vanitas feared having inside himself. He knew his opinion probably wasn’t welcome, but, well, Vanitas was always sharing _his_ when Roxas didn’t want it, so fair’s fair.

_I doubt you’ll change with just a tiny atom of Light,_ Roxas said privately, using Bill’s phrasing. _You’re too much of a jerk to ever be anything like Ventus._

Not that Roxas knew what Ventus was like, but given how contemptuous Vanitas was of his Light half, he probably lacked the sneering, cruel façade Vanitas was so proud of.

Vanitas snorted. _Mind your own damn business._ Roxas could feel some of the anxiety and tension in him relax. _So what’s the plan, kid? Gonna try and wring more info out of Cipher, or should we start looking for a World Heart that can help us?_

Roxas hesitated. The look on Dipper’s face was still burned into his mind, and he couldn’t help but think about Mabel, who’d thanked him before he’d turned around and helped her enemy, and Wendy, who hadn’t been in the Shack, and must have no idea where her family was or what had happened. He was even worried about Stan, who’d tried to give Roxas a place he could belong in Gravity Falls, even knowing Roxas was on the run from a magic organization in another World.

He didn’t care about Gravity Falls itself, uncomfortable as that was to admit. But he did care about them.

Even so… more than he cared about Xion? If he went back to Gravity Falls to help them, Bill wouldn’t uphold his end of the deal. And if he accepted the info from Bill first, and then went to help them, they’d still feel like he’d betrayed them, wouldn’t they?

_News flash, kid,_ Vanitas said curtly. _You_ did _betray them. You knew Cipher was their enemy, and gave him something that you knew was dangerous – that we stole from Dipper in the first place. And so what? It’s not your job to take care of them. It’s their World, and Cipher is their problem to solve, not yours. Even if he kills them all, it’s none of our business. Get over it._

“Give me a minute,” Roxas told Tamo, then closed his eyes.

He opened them standing on the stained glass pedestal, right in front of his mental roommate. Vanitas’s eyebrows arched, and he crossed his arms.

“What?” the man asked, a belligerent scowl smeared across his face.

Roxas punched him right in the nose.

Vanitas reared back, hands clasped over his face. “What the fuck!” he snarled. “What is your problem?”

“ _My_ problem?” Roxas repeated, disgusted. “What is _your_ problem! Why are you so – ” Vanitas kneed him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, then grabbed him by the collar.

Roxas slapped his arms up to break his grip, then tackled him to the floor. Vanitas flipped them over before Roxas could try to pin him.

“You whiny, weak-willed, pathetic little _shit_ ,” Vanitas hissed, hands going for Roxas’s throat. Roxas kicked Vanitas in the groin, loosening Vanitas’s grasp and winding him long enough for Roxas to roll them back around. He immediately went for a chokehold.

“And you’re a sulky, mean, irresponsible, petulant _jerk_ ,” Roxas ground out, straining to hold on while Vanitas struggled. “What gives you the right to tell me how to feel about anything! To tell me to just _get over it,_ that it doesn’t matter if they _die!_ Why the hell don’t you care that we _hurt_ people who _helped_ us!”

Vanitas, taller and more well-muscled than Roxas, broke out of the chokehold and flipped them back around again. This time, his hands fisted in Roxas’s shirt, and he slammed Roxas back against the glass floor. Roxas’s head hit the ground hard, pain and dizziness lancing through him.

“What gives _you_ the right to keep throwing me into danger!” Vanitas barked. “Stop letting people get close to you! They’re a fucking _liability_ , you dumbass brat! If you want to shackle yourself to dead weight, if you want to trap yourself where you can either get what you want _or_ protect every single person who ever said one polite word to you, do it _after_ you get me the fuck _out of here!_ ”

Vanitas punctuated that desperate cry with a vicious fist driving into Roxas’s jaw, and Roxas’s already-weakening attempts to fight back ceased entirely as his head collided with the cold glass underneath it again.

“I won’t disappear. I’m going to _survive_ ,” Vanitas said, a mantra, a prayer, a promise. “I don’t need Ventus, or Master, or _you_. I’m going to _live_ , dammit!”

The darkness around the pillar rumbled, a sick, oily sheen in the air. Roxas and Vanitas both froze, panting. Lips twisted with disgust, Vanitas stood and stalked away. Roxas sat up, groaning as he rubbed his jaw. Why did there have to be physical sensation in here, anyway?

Once he had enough breath in his lungs to speak again, Roxas bit out, stiff and crisp with restraint, “Is it even life if you don’t have friends to share it with?” No way was he backing down from the fight, but he knew he needed to rein it in if they wanted to avoid making more Unversed.

Vanitas made a rude noise. “The more you care about people, the more you prioritize their sensitive little feelings over the future you want for yourself. Spread your Heart too thin, and you’ll never be able to move forward, because you’re too busy protecting other people.”

Roxas’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding with the effort to hold himself back. “If I’d never had friends, never cared about Axel or Xion, I’d still be a tool of the Organization. I never would have had a reason to question anything. But we had fun together, we were happy together, and I wanted to protect that. I wanted _more_ of it. And the people I’ve met since then – Moana, Wendy, the Pines, Tamo… When they’re nice to me, but it makes me happy. It gives me a reason to _like_ being me. That’s worth protecting.”

Roxas pulled his aching body to its feet, and turned a determined glare on Vanitas, who’d gone still. “I understand where you’re coming from,” he said, “but if you don’t want to be stuck with me forever, we need to work together. I want to make more friends, and I want to protect them. If you don’t respect that, whatever, I don’t care. But at least stop insulting me for it.”

Vanitas grunted. It wasn’t an outright refusal, so it was probably agreement. But Roxas wasn’t willing to settle for vague responses just to spare Vanitas’s pride anymore.

“What do you get out of acting like that?” Roxas asked, icy cold. “Is your ego so fragile that you can’t even use your words when I ask you for something?”

The glower Vanitas slashed at him was burning with anger and hate. “You don’t know anything about me,” he flared. “So back off.”

“You could always _tell_ me about yourself,” Roxas shot back. He wasn’t backing down this time.

“Why should I?” Vanitas scoffed.

“Because if something’s preventing you from working with me, I need to know about it,” Roxas said flatly. “If it’s reasonable to accommodate, I’ll accommodate it. If it’s not, I’ll help you pull your head out of your ass. But I don’t want to get stuck with you. I’m not letting you piss me off anymore. We have to do whatever we can to stop making Unversed.”

Vanitas turned sharply on his heels, setting a furious pace as he circled the platform. The void around them pulsed with anger, fear, anxiety, the desperation of a feral creature backed into a corner.

Roxas waited. And he’d keep waiting, as long as it took.

Vanitas growled at him, but finally came to a reluctant halt. He wouldn’t look at Roxas. His arms were crossed, and shoulders hunched in deep, defensively. Gold eyes stared at the floor, lost and alone and so full of pain that even Roxas’s young Heart felt a twinge of sympathy.

“I was created to be a tool,” he said at last, voice dead and empty. “To follow orders. My instincts are always screaming at me to do what I’m told. I hate it, but I can’t escape it. But with you, for the first time, I can fight it. I _have_ to fight it, or I’ll give in to it. Even if it’s something I know is to my ultimate benefit, I can’t let myself take orders from you. I won’t be a tool anymore. I’ll be a real person, who can live for myself, and make my own choices.”

Roxas rocked back on his heels. He’d never given Vanitas orders. Had he? Or… did Vanitas’s instincts interpret even requests or suggestions as orders, and demand he follow them?

It didn’t matter, Roxas decided. Vanitas had finally opened up to him, and given him something he could work with.

“Okay,” Roxas said slowly, “so what do you need me to do? We’re sharing a body, working towards a common goal. Sometimes I need to ask you for something. I want to be able to depend on you.”

Vanitas’s head snapped up, eyes wide. Just as quickly, his eyes slid away again, off into the Darkness. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe phrase it as a question. That helps, sometimes. And don’t keep coming in here. Don’t…” Vanitas visibly struggled with himself. “Don’t make me _look_ at you.”

“Because I look like Ventus?” Roxas asked.

Vanitas laughed, low and broken. “Because you look like _me_.” He shook his head, turned his back. “Just because I can’t wear it anymore doesn’t mean it’s not still _my_ face. Honestly,” Vanitas muttered, burying his face in his hands, “it’s such a terrible fucking joke. I finally got a body that felt like mine, but I wasn’t allowed to keep my face.”

Roxas tilted his head. “Well, we’re going to find a way to make you a new Body, right? It can look however you want.” In an attempt to lighten the mood, he asked, “But do you really want to go back to being blond? The black hair fits you much better.”

Vanitas gave a short, sharp bark of a laugh, hands falling to his hips. “That’s true. Blond hair looks terrible on me.”

“Hey!” Roxas protested, even as an involuntary smirk twitched at his lips. After a beat, he said, “Seriously, though. Thanks for telling me all that. I just want to be able to, you know, work together with you. As…” Friends, he almost said, but he was worried Vanitas would balk at that. “As a team. And that means you can ask me for help, too. I never meant for this to feel… one-way, to you. I don’t like being given orders, or used as a tool, either.”

Vanitas was quiet for a long time, staring out over the abyss. Then he ruefully shook his head. “What are you still doing here, anyway, Roxas? Don’t you have dumb friends to go help?”

The last of the tension between them faded away. The glass beneath their feet glowed softly, Roxas’s sunset colors overtaking another jagged chunk of Sora’s ocean blue, almost directly opposite the first slice. Three of Sora’s friends’ faces were replaced, the arrangement altered to fit four new circles in their place, displaying Axel, Xion, Tamo, and Vanitas. The only face still in blue was Riku’s.

Vanitas and Roxas both walked over to get a better look, and then stared at each other.

“Gross,” Vanitas huffed, sounding much less like a mean-spirited jibe and much more like friendly teasing. “Go away, idiot.”

Roxas laughed, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tailmon’s gloves are purple-and-white instead of her usual because there can be some minor differences between Somebody and Nobody appearances, and also because I just felt like it.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated.


	10. Bitter Pills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten chapters and >30k words! Not bad, if I’m allowed to pat myself on the back, lol.
> 
> Warnings: too much Standing Around Talking About Feelings

Roxas opened his eyes to a throbbing headache and a bloody nose. Well, that answered the question of what physical repercussions there were for getting beaten up inside his own head. Roxas pinched the bridge of his nose and tipped his head backwards until the blood slowed, mouth twisted with distaste.

“Are you alright?” Tamo asked, brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” Roxas assured her. “Vanitas and I just had to figure some stuff out.”

Despite lacking eyebrows, Tamo managed to give the impression that she’d raised one, and was deeply unimpressed.

Roxas squirmed, and quickly went on, “I’m going back to Gravity Falls, to apologize to Dipper and Mabel, and see if I can make it up to them. I want to make sure they’re all okay, anyway. You coming?”

“Of course,” she replied at once.

Roxas nodded. Then, he reached out to the three other Samurai and dozen Dusks who’d chosen to remain with him. The fifteen of them obediently appeared out of thin air.

“I don’t know why you guys wanted to stay with me,” Roxas said. After all, there were dozens of Samurai, and hundreds of Dusks. Most of which would respond to Xemnas’s orders above his. These fifteen – sixteen, including Tamo – were an anomaly. “But I just wanted to say, thanks. I’m sure resisting Xemnas’s control isn’t easy. From now on, I hope I can be a better leader than he is.”

Roxas looked them over. He could feel that sensation that they were leaning into every drop of attention he could give them, the mental shiver as they drank it up as if they were dying of thirst.

He would help them all become like Tamo, he decided. If they wanted to.

“I’m going to find a way for all of us to get our own Hearts, without following Xemnas or using Kingdom Hearts. But I won’t force you guys to do anything anymore,” Roxas told them. “If I’m in danger, I’d like it if you’d help me, but I won’t order you to, and I won’t be mad if you don’t. You can choose whether or not you want to stay with me. If you want to, all I ask is that you don’t betray me. Not to Xemnas, or Axel, or anyone else in the Organization. But if you don’t want to, it’s time for you to go.”

And with that, he withdrew his mental control. Of course, he could still feel their presence and talk to them, but he wouldn’t command them anymore. It was risky, but then, continuing to use Vanitas’s power to override Xemnas’s probably wasn’t good for him, either.

Two of the Dusks immediately disappeared. Two more wavered, then vanished as well. The remaining eight Dusks barely shuddered, and the three Samurai didn’t react at all.

_Eight Dusks, three Samurai, your little pet cat, and you,_ Vanitas tallied, and snickered. _You’ve got your own Organization XIII here, don’t you? Though nowhere near the same combat level._

Roxas wasn’t sure what to think of how the numbers had worked out, but the relative fighting abilities didn’t bother him. _That’s fine,_ he replied. _I don’t expect them to fight for me if they don’t want to, anyway. I can take care of myself._

_Sure. But if you’re so determined to protect everyone close to you, it’s going to be hard if you’re the only competent fighter on the roster, right?_

Roxas pursed his lips, but it didn’t seem like Vanitas was trying to suggest he abandon anyone again. And he did have a point. _Do you have any ideas, then?_

_‘Course I do,_ Vanitas declared. _As the brains of this whole operation_ – since when, Roxas wondered – _I have all the best ideas. I was going to suggest this earlier, but Cipher distracted me. Why not try recruiting some of your Organization buddies to your side?_

Roxas frowned. _Like who?_ he asked, skeptical. _They’re all either loyal to Xemnas, or too afraid to go against him._

_You know_ Axel’s _too afraid to leave,_ Vanitas said, _and I think it’s safe to say that the two with gold eyes and pointy ears are loyal to Mr. Superior. But the others might be worth talking to – if you can’t get them on your side, you can at least shake them up a little, make them less reliable commodities for Boss Man. Especially with what we know now about Nobodies and Hearts._

_I guess,_ Roxas said slowly. _But why do you think only Xigbar and Saix are loyal to Xemnas? Xaldin was a founding member of the Organization, too._

And Roxas wasn’t entirely certain Saix had been. He knew from off-handed comments he’d overheard while in the Organization that Numbers One through Six had been apprentices together, and Demyx, Number Nine, hadn’t joined until after the Organization had been founded. But he didn’t know for sure if Saix and Axel had been there from the beginning or not.

_Because,_ Vanitas started, then trailed off. Roxas felt him struggling with himself, and strange, conflicting feelings he didn’t know how to name.

_Just because,_ he said lamely, then pushed on before Roxas could protest, _Roxas, I can’t. I just…_ can’t _._

Roxas’s eyebrows shot up. He’d never heard Vanitas sound so defeated before, so… small. Even his confession from a few minutes ago hadn’t sounded quite like that.

_Well, can you work on it?_ Roxas asked, trying not to sound too bossy. _I won’t push you, but the Organization are your enemies as much as mine right now, and if you know something, it would really help if you could tell me._

Vanitas grunted acknowledgment, but didn’t otherwise reply, and Roxas let the subject drop for now.

“I’m going back to Gravity Falls,” Roxas told his assembled Nobodies. “You can come with me if you want, but if you do, you should probably stay out of sight. I don’t know how the people there will react to you. I’ll talk more with you guys once I’ve done what I need to there.”

The Samurai inclined their heads in assent, and after a moment, the Dusks tentatively imitated their example. They followed Roxas into the Dark portal he created, but then disappeared from sight. Roxas could still sense them, though.

Tamo, of course, stayed by his side.

“Vanitas thinks we could recruit other members of the Organization,” Roxas told her as they traversed the Dark corridor. “Or at least shake their loyalty to Xemnas.”

Tamo nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good strategy,” she said. “I’m sure some of them would be very interested to know that they can get Hearts on their own.”

“I guess. But even if they’re not loyal anymore, they might still stay with the Organization out of fear of being turned into Dusks,” Roxas muttered. He had a hard time picturing, say, Demyx being more willing to risk Xemnas’s wrath than Axel was.

“Maybe,” Tamo allowed, “but you could always tell them how you were able to give me my form back. There’s no reason we know of that you couldn’t do the same for them, if they get turned into Dusks.”

Roxas stared at her. That hadn’t even occurred to him.

Tamo went on, “Besides, fear is not as effective a motivation as you’re assuming it is. Loyalty bought with fear will always be weaker than loyalty bought with trust and respect.”

“You think so?” Roxas asked doubtfully.

Tamo nodded with confidence that bespoke personal experience. “Using fear to control others is a double-edged sword. It works because of self-preservation, so if the people you’re trying to control are ever shown that they have an option to follow someone who doesn’t keep them in a constant state of fear for their lives, that same logic is likely to propel them away from you as quickly as it pulled them to you in the first place.

“Furthermore, in this case, your stance against the Superior strengthens your position proportionally to how much it weakens his,” she went on on. “After all, he needs you for his plan to succeed, as the only known active Keyblade wielder. But you don’t need him. If you can propose an alternative means of getting their own independent Hearts, while at the same time preventing Xemnas’s method from working, you give the other Organization members even more incentive to switch sides.”

“I guess,” Roxas muttered. He wasn’t sure why he disliked this plan so much, why he wanted so badly for Tamo and Vanitas to be wrong. He didn’t have anything personally against Demyx, or Luxord, or even Xaldin, so why was he so reluctant to consider recruiting them?

_Does it have anything to do with your baggage about Axel?_ Vanitas asked casually, then snorted as Roxas froze, three steps from the Dark corridor’s exit. _Knew it. You should probably work on that,_ he sneered, but without any real bite.

He wasn’t wrong, either, Roxas reluctantly allowed. The biggest Unversed he’d made so far had been when he confronted Axel. If he didn’t want that to happen again, he’d have to deal with his ‘baggage,’ as Vanitas called it, to avoid being swamped by negative emotion if they met again.

“Is something wrong?” Tamo asked, reminding Roxas that she wasn’t privy to his conversations with Vanitas or his inner thoughts.

“I guess I just don’t like thinking that…” Roxas grimaced, and forced himself to put it into words. “That Demyx or Luxord or Xaldin would come with me when Axel didn’t. He and Xion were my best friends, and neither of them…” His stomach turned, breath hitching.

It wasn’t fair to be mad at Xion, Roxas knew that. He missed her, and wanted to bring her back, so he’d never quite realized before that he was upset she’d done what Xemnas wanted in the end. Or maybe his new Heart hadn’t been able to feel more than one thing at a time about each person he cared about.

But now he could recognize that he both felt betrayed by Axel, and missed him. He both missed Xion, and felt betrayed by her. Neither one of them had told him anything before it was too late. Both of them fell in with Xemnas’s plot rather than take a risk by helping Roxas.

Xion probably didn’t have a choice, Roxas reminded himself. She didn’t have any control over what happened to her.

But she’d always acted on her own without telling him anything, too. Maybe if she’d talked to Roxas sooner, they could have found a solution together, and things would have ended differently. She’d hidden things from Roxas as much as Axel had, and that’s what hurt.

Neither of his best friends had been willing to trust him, or work with him. That betrayal would just hurt worse if anyone else from the Organization, who wasn’t close to Roxas the same way, would do what they’d refused to.

Tamo leapt nimbly to his shoulder, and Roxas jolted, staring at her with surprise. She wasn’t heavy, though, and now they could speak eye-to-eye.

“Axel should have spoken with you,” Tamo agreed quietly, and apparently had already forgotten his mention of Xion, “but I’m sure the reason he didn’t is because he wanted to protect you. He wasn’t motivated by self-preservation, but by his strong feelings for you. He just didn’t know the right way to act on those feelings.”

A lump rose in Roxas’s throat, and he angrily swallowed it down. “Then why didn’t Axel come with me when I left?” he asked, bitter bile coating his tongue.

Tamo looked down thoughtfully. “I can’t say for sure. Only Axel can tell you his reasons. But I was a Dusk with the Organization for a long time. At least a year before you came, maybe longer. I saw Axel often speaking with Saix, and they seemed very close, for Nobodies. It’s possible that either he chose to stay with Saix, or wasn’t able to make a choice between you at all.” She met Roxas’s eyes again, resolute. “You should talk to him, too, if you get the chance. He’s worth trying to persuade as much as any of the others.”

“Maybe,” was the best answer Roxas was willing to give. He took a deep breath, and gave his feelings a minute to settle down. Then he stepped through the Dark portal back to Gravity Falls.

 

***

 

Instead of portaling directly into the Mystery Shack – that didn’t seem like a great way to start an apology – Roxas had chosen his exit point a short ways down the road from it. When he stepped out, he yelped when he immediately had to dodge away from being stepped on by a giant goat, Tamo’s claws digging into his shoulder so she could hold on.

Roxas looked around, wide-eyed. There was a lot of Dark energy in the air, bubbles of chaos everywhere, and even from here he could see Bill’s floating pyramid in the middle of town – the Fearamid, he’d called it. Above the Fearamid was the portal, a huge X-shaped hole in the sky that rained its unstable magic down on Gravity Falls. A few eyeball monsters flew past overhead.

Weirdmageddon was in full swing.

_How long was I gone?_ Roxas asked Vanitas, baffled.

_Who knows?_ Vanitas shrugged. _Time moves differently in different Worlds. Half an hour on Te Fiti could be a few days, here._

Roxas winced at that. Great. So not only had he abandoned the Corduroys and the Pines, but he may have left them to suffer through Weirdmageddon for several days.

Cautiously, he walked towards the Shack. Luckily – or perhaps because of the protection spell? – it didn’t look damaged. There was a lot of activity going on around it, people and creatures he hadn’t seen before or barely knew bustling around with scrap metal and spare parts.

The Corduroys were the only people he knew well within immediate sight, and Wendy spotted him first.

“Roxas!” She ran over to him, and before he could say anything, pulled him into a quick, tight hug. She gave Tamo a curious look, but most of her attention was on Roxas. “I’m glad you’re alright, man. Where were you?”

If anything, that affectionate greeting and open concern just made him feel worse. “Dipper didn’t say anything to you?” he asked.

Wendy gave him an odd look. “No. Why, what’s up? Did something happen?”

Dipper hadn’t told them what Roxas had done? Why not?

“Yeah,” Roxas said slowly. “Can I talk to you separately? And Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Mr. Pines?"

“Alright,” Wendy agreed. She and Tamo exchanged introductions – if Wendy thought a talking cat-creature was weird, she didn’t comment on it – and Wendy explained their plans for a Mystery Shack giant robot as she led Roxas inside.

Dipper was looking over some blueprints with Soos and an unkempt old man. Mabel was passing out cans of food to everyone. Stan sat in his old armchair, scowling at nothing.

“Hey guys, check it out, Roxas is here,” Wendy called out.

“Roxas!” Mabel threw herself at him, arms squeezing him hard. Then she spotted Tamo, and her eyes went starry. “Ohmygosh your cat is so cute!” she squealed.

“I’m Tamo. It’s nice to meet you,” Tamo said, and Mabel squealed again, even louder.

“ _She talks!_ ”

“Glad you’re okay, kid,” Stan said gruffly, pulling himself to his feet so he could ruffle Roxas’s hair.

“Yeah, good to see ya, dude.” Soos grinned.

“Why did you come back?” Dipper asked coldly. The others stared at him, surprised.

“What bug flew up your butt, bro-bro?” Mabel put her hands on her hips, but before she could start in on Dipper, Roxas cut in.

“Because I owed you guys an explanation,” he said. “And an apology.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stan asked suspiciously. Mabel looked back and forth between Dipper and Roxas, Wendy frowned, and Soos just looked confused. Dipper continued to glare at Roxas with suspicion and distrust, though Roxas supposed he couldn’t blame him.

All other activity in the Shack slowed to a halt, as everyone picked up on the awkward tension in the air. Roxas hadn’t wanted to speak to a wider audience, but he didn’t think he had a choice at this point.

“I took the portal out of Dipper’s backpack,” Roxas started – no point in differentiating between himself and Vanitas when no one here knew Vanitas existed, “and gave it to Bill as my end of a deal.”

“ _WHAT?_ ” too many voices exploded, but it was the way Dipper’s face hardened that made Roxas flinch.

“Roxas, why?” Mabel asked, eyes wide and watering.

Roxas took a deep breath. “That’s what I wanted to explain, and apologize for. It’s kind of a complicated story, so…”

“Alright,” Wendy said warily, a hand on Mabel’s shoulder. “We’re listening.”

Roxas nodded gratefully. There were so many strangers here, he didn’t want to give more details than he had to, while still adequately explaining things to Wendy and the Pines. Choosing each word with extra care, he started, “The… magic cult I was part of was made up of Nobodies. People who had lost their Hearts, their ability to feel emotion. I was different because I’d lost my memory of who I was before, too. So it took me a long time to realize I was being used. I left, but there were other people after me, who wanted to force me to become the person I was before I lost my Heart. But I don’t feel like I used to be him. I’ve only existed for a year, but I have my own will, my own identity, that has nothing to do with him. So I ran away from those people, too, and I decided I would find a way to exist as a whole person by myself.”

He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Tamo’s weight on his shoulder was a solid, reassuring warmth. He wasn’t alone. Even if the people of Gravity Falls couldn’t forgive him, he wasn’t alone. Roxas swallowed, and continued.

“I’d heard that Bill Cipher could tell me if that was possible, and how to do it if it was. Once I got here, I found out he was your enemy, but when he offered me the information I wanted in exchange for that portal, I agreed. I knew the Shack was protected, and I figured if he was difficult for you to deal with, I could help you fight him afterwards. I didn’t realize that just making the deal with him would hurt anyone, or put people in danger. Bill told me… just making new memories, and meeting new people, would let me grow a new Heart, even if it took a while. So I have a hard time… figuring out how I feel, or what I should do.”

Roxas forced himself to look up, to meet Dipper and Mabel’s eyes.

“I’m glad you guys were nice to me,” he said quietly. “I’m not used to that. So thank you. And I’m sorry. There’s still a lot I don’t understand, but I know I don’t want to hurt people who helped me. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”

Tears were streaming down Mabel’s cheeks, but Roxas wasn’t sure how to read the look on her face. At least, she didn’t seem like she was mad at him. Dipper looked conflicted, but when Mabel made to throw herself at Roxas again, Dipper grabbed her arm.

“There’s something else I want to know,” Dipper said. “Bill said he could tell you how to save someone, and you almost went with him. Who did you want to save? How do we know you won’t betray us again?”

Roxas hesitated. All evidence suggested that they’d forget anything he told them about Xion, but maybe if he kept the details to a minimum it would stick? “Something bad happened to a friend of mine,” he said at last. “I want to save her, but… I’ll find a way by myself. I don’t want to hurt you guys anymore.”

Dipper eyed him for a long minute. Then, he let go of Mabel, and she promptly flung herself at Roxas.

Roxas grunted with surprise as she clung to him, crying and babbling something too sob-soaked to make out clearly. Wendy stepped forward, and put a hand on his empty shoulder.

“I don’t get all that about magic cult Nobodies and losing Hearts and junk,” she said, “but sounds like you’ve had a rough time, Roxas. Everyone makes mistakes. If you help us fight that evil triangle dude, that’s enough for me.”

“Dude, are you really only a year old?” Soos asked. “Either you grew up super fast, or you’re the biggest baby I’ve ever seen.”

Roxas’s brow furrowed. “No, I’m not a baby. And I grew up the normal way.” By the Destiny Islands’ definition of normal, anyway. “My body belonged to someone else for the first fourteen years, but now it’s mine, and _my_ memory starts one year ago.”

“Whatever you say, dude,” Soos said, nonplussed.

“I’ve got a question,” Stan interjected. He didn’t look angry, despite the rough edge on his voice. “Kid, how did you know the rift was a portal? Did the triangle tell you?”

Roxas blinked, and shook his head. “It feels a lot like the portals I can make.” To demonstrate, he summoned a Dark portal, then quickly dismissed it again. Everyone stared. “The… rift? It’s a lot bigger than my portals, and a lot more unstable, but it’s essentially the same kind of thing.”

“Really.” Stan grinned. “You sure closed that portal of yours nice and quick, didn’t you. Think you could close that one?” He pointed up, to indicate the giant X-shaped portal outside.

“I don’t know,” Roxas admitted. “It’s magically huge, and unstable, and a really dangerous mix of Light and Darkness. It should be possible to use the Keyblade to close something like that, but I don’t have much skill or experience with mine, yet.”

“You want to make it up to us, don’t you?” Dipper asked, curt but no longer cold. “So it’s worth trying, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Roxas said. “I’d need to be a lot closer to it, though, for starters.” And even if he could get close enough to close it, where would he get the power to make up what he lacked in experience? If using Light and Darkness at the same time was as difficult as Vanitas had said…

In the back of his mind, he felt Vanitas grin. _I might know a way._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments greatly appreciated.


End file.
